RESISTANT
Kallie ignored the grasping hands and contorted faces as she hurried down the corridor, grateful for the level-three biosafety gear that insulated her from their misery. To them, she was another hooded white suit with goggles and mask. To her, they were overwhelming.
She focused her gaze straight ahead, trying to ignore the pleas for outlawed drugs. Everyone claimed to understand the prohibitions until it applied to them.
And these days, Kallie thought, it always applied to them.
A hand grabbed her arm and yanked her back to a gurney.
“Please, help me. Can’t you see?”
She did. The welting rash and lesions had disfigured what might have been a handsome face. Syphilis. Such an easy disease to cure in her grandparents' day now delivered a death sentence. She shook her head and pried his swollen fingers from the sleeve of her coverall.
Her attending physician had warned the first-year residents about succumbing to pity and the repercussions of breaking the law. Not only would they lose their medical license, they’d serve a minimum of ten years in prison and get fined three times the amount of their school loans, which in her case, would indenture her parents to the government for the rest of their lives. And these punishments didn’t even begin to address the ramifications to humanity. So while Kallie’s heart ached for this doomed man, she would leave him for the hospital orderlies. No antibiotic Hail Mary to stave off the inevitable; just a curtained slot in the Palliative Care Ward where he would live out the rest of his miserable existence.
Or until he requested physician-assisted suicide and signed the release for a lethal dose of secobarbital.
“Someone will come for you soon.” She hurried away before he could ask any more from her. “Damn,” she muttered, sniffing and wishing for the hundredth time she could touch her face without the risk of spreading deadly pathogens. “Save the ones you can, Kallie. Save the ones you can.”
No more distractions. Grandpa’s forgetfulness had delayed the family carpool by twenty minutes and Kallie had been making up time ever since she entered the suit room of the hospital. She ran her hand up the front of her neck, checking for the umpteenth time that she had zipped the coverall to the chin and properly secured the cup-shaped N100 particulate mask over her nose and mouth.
The respiratory mask was designed to filter 99.97 percent of any germs she might encounter in the ER triage. Not a hundred percent, but then neither was the PAPR hood she was required to wear in the ER’s airborne transmission wing. While many of her colleagues wore the level-four security hood even in the lower risk wings of the ER, Kallie preferred the comfort, visibility, and humanity she gained by wearing only the required mask and goggles: Suffering patients needed to see a caring physician, not a hazmat worker. Besides, the protection was almost identical.
Provided the mask fit.
Kallie sighed, steaming the lower half of her face. Just last week, a triage nurse with an improperly fitted mask had died after a child with influenza coughed in her face. The deadly strain killed the nurse in thirty hours. Kallie shook her head with regret. The paramedics should have recognized the extreme hazard and wheeled the girl directly to the airborne transmission wing. Instead they brought her to triage. Now a compassionate nurse with an ill-fitted mask was dead.
All because of a flu.
Kallie clenched her hands, frustrated by the injustice. Her grandfather claimed he had caught influenza dozens of times when he was young with rarely more treatment than rest, juice, and chicken soup. When that didn’t work, his pediatrician had prescribed an antiviral. To a child! If that weren’t hard enough to fathom, Grandpa said his parents used to get annual flu shots at the grocery store. Kallie could hardly imagine a world where death could be avoided so easily. Then again, the drugs and vaccines that had saved Grandpa and his parents from the flu had doomed the rest of humanity to uber-virulent, deadly-toxic superbugs.
How was she supposed to feel about that? Ashamed that her own relative had contributed to the problem? Or grateful he had lived to have children and grandchildren? After all, without Kallie, Dr. Raje would have no one to berate.
Kallie slipped through the open door and took a place behind her fellow residents, wishing for once she wasn’t five-feet-ten.
Dr. Raje’s face wrinkled like a stewed prune when he saw her. “Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Dr. Anderson. We were just discussing options for this patient’s patellar fracture. Dr. Holmes believes we should cast it and send him to the second-floor general ward. Dr. Kwok suggests surgery and admittance to the third-floor infection ward. Perhaps you’d like to share your wisdom on the topic.”
Kallie frowned. The patient, Eddie Spinks, had shattered his kneecap, and the chances of a comminuted fracture healing on its own in a cast were slim to none. More likely, he would suffer chronic pain and lifelong disability. And then there was the floating fragment to consider: Not only would the displaced bones knit improperly in a cast, the fragment would likely cause a deadly infection. On the other hand, cutting him open would almost certainly kill him.
Kallie took a breath and delivered a careful response. “Assuming he survived, the patient would have a better chance of full recovery with the surgery. Casting the knee is slightly less risky, but it would probably cripple him. I think the patient should be presented with the risk/reward statistics for both procedures then allowed to make his own decision.”
Dr. Raje snorted. “And the hospital? What about the risks to us?”
Kallie bowed her head. Now that mankind had entered the era of antimicrobial resistance, doctors made decisions based on hospital liability and global responsibility. The patient had no say. She knew this. She just didn’t accept it. Kallie had become a doctor to cure patients, not protect hospitals. And while she cared about the future of humanity, she didn’t believe all the doomsday predictions and cautionary restrictions shoveled into the news.
What happened to the cool futuristic notions of the past? The hovercrafts and space elevators to the Moon and Mars? The body scanners that could detect illness in seconds? The nanotechnology and medical breakthroughs that were supposed to make disease obsolete?
Kallie stifled a snort of derision. Money for those fantastic advancements had been consumed by humanity’s fight for existence.
Dr. Raje dropped the patient’s chart into the slot at the foot of the bed with a decisive clank. He had given up waiting for Kallie’s answer, if indeed he ever expected one. As Kallie watched her fellow residents follow Dr. Raje to the next bed, she peeked at the chart for the verdict: The fractured patella would be cast.
Kallie sighed again.
Sighing was becoming a regular occurrence and one her mother feared would harm her matchmaking score. Kallie didn’t care. So what if disgruntled suitors marked her down a couple of stars? She didn’t crave motherhood, and she had no desire to leave the people she loved to join some stranger’s family. Kallie would rather never experience the supposed joys of sex than have her actions governed by another tribe’s hierarchy.
All for the sake of safety.
Everything about her life felt controlled and monitored; and she hated it. Kallie didn’t need the government, the Global Health Association, or anyone else telling her what to do. She knew how infectious diseases spread and, unlike the general population, could easily test any suitors for hostile microbes or genetic incompatibility—after all, her best friend worked in CADLab, California’s most advanced diagnostic laboratory. But that wasn’t how society worked. Children grew up in the shelter of their family compounds, attended virtual schools, and played with germ-safe siblings. When the hormones kicked in, suitable matches were found through online services and the young women—or sometimes teenage girls—were married off into other families while carefully chosen brides were brought in for the young men.
Civilization hadn’t boldly expanded to the stars; it had shrunken into fearful tribes.
The patient on the ER triage table shifted then groaned. Patellar fractures were painful. Without surgery, Eddie Spinks would likely be moved to the palliative care floor along with the man dying from syphilis and every other terminally infected or contaminated patient.
The seventh floor was so crowded, the hospital had patients bedded in slots like cattle waiting for slaughter, which is exactly what they were. What difference did it make if Ebola—the cure for which had been discovered and discarded decades ago when the virus became resistant—ripped through the ward? It would be a blessing. The hospital hazmat team could clear the corpses and sterilize the entire floor by morning. She knew: She’d seen it done.
“Hey, doc. What they gonna to do with me?”
Eddie Spinks was thirty-four—only five years older than Kallie—strong, athletic, probably the main support for his clan. He had crashed his motorcycle in the rain while hauling a dinette set harnessed to his back.
She patted his good ankle and forced a smile. “They’re going to take good care of you.”
“Yeah? Don’t sound like it. I heard what you said about being crippled and all. Think I’d rather get cut open.” He paused, waiting for a different verdict. None came. “Yeah. Figured as much. Thing is, my kin ain’t strong enough to fetch the groceries. And now that guy run me over and bust up Jacob’s bike… “ He let that thought drift unfinished. “Heck, they don’t even know I’m here.”
Kallie checked the chart. “I’d call, but I don’t see a number.”
Eddie scoffed then flinched as the action jolted his knee. “We don’t got a phone.”
Kallie nodded with understanding. If his family lived below technology level, they also wouldn’t have a computer, let alone a monitor wall like the one in her family’s media room where her cousins attended school. How had Eddie gotten an education? From his kin? She doubted Ma and Pa had done a very good job.
“Where do you live?”
Eddie shrugged, carefully this time so as not to jostle the knee. “What difference it make? Not like anyone’s gonna drive to Hidden Springs.”
“Where’s Hidden Springs?”
He gave her a look that said she’d just proved his point.
Kallie glanced at her residency team to make sure her absence hadn’t been noted.
“How about a neighbor? Is there someone I could call who could run the message over to your folks?”
He shook his head. “None that got a phone. Besides, who would take the risk? I mean, it’s not like my kin’s sick or nothin’. But you never know, right?”
Kallie nodded. His neighbors were probably just like hers: keeping to themselves, terrified of germs, donning masks and clothes that covered every inch of skin no matter how hot the weather. Except in Kallie’s neighborhood, people could order what they needed online and have those deliveries left on stoops, where they could be sterilized before being brought into homes. Eddie’s tribe couldn’t do that.
She slid Eddie’s chart back into the slot.
“What about Jacob? He’ll want to know what happened to his bike, won’t he?”
Eddie grunted. “Blast Jacob to hell. Him and his damn ideas. Why else that truck run me into the wall?”
“I thought you were in an accident. If this was hit and run, we have to call the police.”
“I ain’t callin’ no police. Besides, Jacob worked for the government. If they’re trying to kill him, cops ain’t gonna do nothin’ for me except let them know they got the wrong guy.”
“What are you talking about? And who is this Jacob?”
Eddie snorted. “He could teach you a thing or two about infections—you and that uppity doctor.”
Kalie grit her teeth. “Is that so? Well then I guess it’s too bad he isn’t here to help you.”
“Nah. Jacob’s smart, but he ain’t no doctor. Used to work in a lab with germs and rats. Won’t tell me doing what. Gotta be something top secret, though. Otherwise, why would someone try and kill him?”
“Why are you so sure someone was trying to kill him? Maybe the driver didn’t see your bike. Ever thought of that?”
Eddie snorted louder. “I had a table strapped to my back. You tellin’ me a driver couldn’t see me? No. Someone mistook me for Jacob sure as shit. And now I’m gonna die.” He shook his head. “Dumb bad luck.”
Kallie sighed, wishing she had followed the rest of her team. Hadn’t Dr. Raje warned her about engaging patients in conversation? Only every other day.
“You’re not going to die, Mr. Spinks; but I’ll call someone better equipped to talk you through these fears you’re experiencing.”
“I don’t want no shrink. What I need is help for my kin.”
Kallie gazed longingly at her team, who had moved on to a patient Kallie recognized from six months ago—an African-American boy with osteosarcoma. Since there were only a few palliative options to consider, her team wouldn’t linger over his chart. Treating cancer had become a thing of the past. You either beat it, or you didn’t. The Global Health Association had long since banned the use of cell-killing chemotherapy and radiation treatments that often led to skin infections. Doctors still performed surgeries on occasion but only the ones with the lowest risk of infection, and never on or near bacterial-rich gastric organs. No. After rejecting Eddie’s relatively low-risk knee surgery, a conservative doctor like Patel would never approve pelvic surgery for a patient with such a dismal chance of survival. All of this meant Kallie could afford another minute with Eddie Spinks.
“You said you’re the only one strong enough to do grocery runs; why does it take strength? Doesn’t your family have a car?”
“Nope.”
Kallie stifled another sigh. She should have known better than to ask. If Eddie’s family lived below the technology level, they wouldn’t be able to afford their one government-allotted car.
“How about mass transit? I know it’s risky, but the UV blasts at the doors really do help; and the side effects are minimal compared to the disinfectants they used to use.”
Eddie shook his head. “Pop built our place next to a river in the San Gabriel Wilderness after the government stopped funding the parks. Not too many folks live out there; survivalists mostly.” He chuckled. “Guess everyone’s a survivalist now.”
Kallie smiled. “Some more than others. I’m still a city girl.”
“Yeah. Can’t see you packin’ your gear down the river bank. Probably fall in and mess up that nice white suit.”
Kallie pinched her lips into an annoyed grin. Bad enough she had to stuff herself into these sausage suits every morning without some hick patient making fun of her.
“Okay,” she said, with an edge in her voice. “Time for me to go.”
***
As much as she tried, Kallie couldn’t get Eddie Spinks out of her head. Even when the paramedics rolled in the dying firefighter and she pressed her gloved hand against his gashed belly to stanch the blood, thoughts of Eddie lingered. Or more accurately—thoughts of Jacob.
What did the former government man know about infections that Kallie and Dr. Raje did not?
“Have you got it, Dr. Anderson?” asked Dr. Raje.
“Yes,” Kallie said, pinching the ruptured intestine. “Give me a clamp.”
The next twenty minutes passed with focused attention, relieving Kallie’s mind of nagging questions. They returned when she dumped the contaminated gloves.
What did Jacob know? What kind of work did he do for the government? Was he a fabrication of a psychotic mind? Was Eddie Spinks an attention-grabbing liar?
Kallie snapped on a clean pair of gloves. She had another thirty minutes before the end of her shift; then she’d pay Mr. Spinks another visit—and order a psych evaluation for the morning.
***
As it turned out, Kallie’s next task took her across the hall from the ER room Eddie shared with the osteosarcoma boy and a construction worker who had severed his hand.
Kallie glanced at their room while she gave her sleeping patient a cursory inspection. The woman had arrived screaming from a virulent urinary tract infection. Dr. Raje had ordered a morphine drip to spare her—and everyone else in the ER—from her anguish. Would Dr. Raje do the same for Eddie when his infection set in? No. By then, Eddie Spinks would have become someone else’s problem.
Kallie released the woman’s limp wrist and glanced at the clock. Visiting hours had ended. A straggler ambled out of the room across the hall. A construction worker checking up on his buddy? The uncle of the dying boy? Certainly, no friend of Eddie’s. No one knew he was here, which reminded her that someone had to contact his family.
Kallie gritted her teeth. If she wanted it done, she’d have to do it herself.
“Hello, Mr. Spinks. How are you feeling?” she asked, from the foot of the bed.
He was dozing. Had Dr. Raje already put him on a drip? Couldn’t have. No way an infection could have set in that fast. Just in case, she checked the IV rack for a morphine bag. Nothing other than saline.
“Eddie? It’s Dr. Anderson. I need to ask you a few questions.”
She jostled his arm. “Eddie? Can you hear me?”
She put a hand on his chest, leaned her cheek over his nose and mouth, and shouted for a nurse.
Five minutes later, she called the time of death.
***
Kallie planted her feet and glared at her family.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said. “I need to help a patient, that’s all.”
Her grandfather blew snot into his handkerchief and wiped his nose vigorously. “Not a big deal? Jeremy, talk some sense into your daughter.”
Kallie’s father nodded. “Grandpa’s right. Since when do residents make house calls?”
“This is a special situation, Dad. The family doesn’t even know this man’s been hospitalized. They have no phone, no neighbors, and as of yesterday, no vehicle. They must be worried sick. Someone has to tell them.”
Kallie wasn’t about to mention that the patient had already died or that she found the circumstances of his death to be highly suspicious. Her family was alarmed enough as it was.
“But why you?” her mother asked.
“Why not me? Why not anyone? That’s the problem with our society: Everyone’s locked in their fear.”
Grandpa slapped a palm on the table. “We take care of our own, young lady.”
“And that’s precisely my point. We’ve become a clannish, frightened society that doesn’t give a damn about anyone else.” She held up her hand to forego any further argument. “I became a doctor to help people. I won’t let Eddie’s family die in isolation. Someone has to help or they’re not going to make it.”
Her mom gasped. “I thought you were just going to break the news about your patient. You’re not going to let any of these people in our car, are you? What if they’re carrying a virus? What if they have bacteria clinging to their clothes?”
Kallie waved a hand impatiently. “No, of course not. But I could fetch some groceries, or take a message to a friend.”
Or find Jacob.
That was the real reason Kallie wanted the van; she needed to know if Jacob was a real person or the delusion of a mentally disturbed man. Because if he did exist, and if he had worked in a government lab, and if he did know more about infections than Kallie or Dr. Raje or any of the other attending physicians at LA Memorial, then Jacob could either substantiate or refute Kallie’s suspicions.
But first, she needed the van.
“I won’t let anyone inside, Mom. I promise. But if they have a trailer, I’m going to hitch it to the van and move them to an in-law tribe.”
Her father grunted. “An in-law tribe won’t accept them, and you know it. Once a daughter marries, she separates from her birth family and joins her husband’s family forever. That’s the only way to stay safe. The germs have to be contained. Each tribe takes care of its own—period, end of story.”
Kallie cringed to hear her grandfather’s expression come out of her father’s mouth. But that’s what happened when generations were confined together for life. The diversity boom from the turn of the millennium had reverted into a homogenizing trend where online matchmaking sites chose potential mates based on the woman’s predicted compatibility with her potential husband’s tribe. The practice was based on the assumption that household harmony rose in direct relation to points of commonality. To this end, algorithms matched couples according to similarities—race, genes, intelligence, personality, religion, even hobbies. So while couples like Kallie’s grandparents had come from different heritages and backgrounds, their descendants had become, and would continue to become, more alike with every carefully selected marriage. Even now, just two generations later, everyone in the Anderson family, including Kallie’s sister-in-laws, were determined, intelligent people with hazel eyes, straight cinnamon-colored hair, broad shoulders, narrow hips, and long legs. All the women topped five-feet-ten. All the men ranged from six-one to six-four.
Kallie’s dad heaved a sigh that sounded annoyingly similar to her own.
“How did you get so headstrong?” he asked.
Kallie snorted, followed by an identical snort from her grandpa, dad, mom, brothers, sisters-in-laws, three nephews, and two nieces until the entire family was laughing at the absurdity of the question. Then the merriment died away, like a wave receding from the shore, and the family was serious once again.
Kallie’s father put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll be careful, won’t you? Keep your doors locked and wear your level-four gear?”
Kallie shook her head. “I can’t do that, I’ll overheat. But I’ll bring the hood in case I have to enter the house.”
He frowned. “Not good enough.”
“Dad, I’m not going to drive all that way in full gear. It’s overkill. But I’ll follow all standard precautions: I’ll cover up, wear a mask and gloves, and keep a yard of distance between me and anyone I meet. Okay? I’ll be fine. Promise.”
Grandpa blew another nose-full of snot and grumbled something about foolishness and respect.
Mom gave her a hug. “Be careful.”
Kallie kissed her cheek. “I will. Try not to worry.”
As if that were even possible. Worry was an Anderson family trait.
***
It took Kallie two doubt-filled hours to drive out of Los Angeles and into the sparse, desert mountains of the San Gabriel Wilderness. Eddie’s records listed the Hidden Springs Campsite as his address. As promised, it lay in the middle of nowhere.
She stepped out of the van, locked the doors, and clamped a boot onto the front wheel for good measure. The nearest anything was twenty-miles away. The last time Kallie had walked that far, was—well—never.
She left her biosafety gear in the van and opted for a long-sleeve cotton blouse, jeans, and a pair of jogging shoes. And because her parents hadn’t raised a total fool, she had stuffed a pair of latex gloves and a particle respiratory mask in her back pockets. Although the make-shift gear didn’t match her promise, Kallie felt certain the protection would suffice.
Charred disks dotted the plateau, reminding her of the camp songs Grandpa used to sing when she was a little girl. She had felt so close to him then, building blanket tents in the living room and warming her hands around a pile of rolled up red shirts. Grandpa painted his Boy Scouting adventures so vividly she’d wake the next morning with the scent of pine trees and the sticky feel of sap on her fingers. Each month she’d beg him to take her to the mountains; and each month he’d build another campsite out of blankets and rolled up shirts.
“No one camps outdoors anymore, Kallie-girl,” he’d always say. “Were better off in our living room.”
While it was true that most folks hid in the safety of their family compounds and sterile work environments, a courageous few headed to open spaces every chance they got. Kallie tried to convince her family to do the same, citing the health benefits of fresh air and exercise, but they refused to believe.
“Those articles are decades old,” her father had said. “You can’t believe those old wives’ tales. Doctors know better now.”
“But I am a doctor!”
“You’re a resident. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
Remembering his comment made her as angry now as it had that day. She couldn’t understand how people as intelligent as her family could buy into such hysteria. Sure, the news was full of stories about doomed people infecting others out of spite, and communes in the wilderness where the infected gathered to live out the rest of their miserable days; but come on. Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that people dying of infectious diseases were like everyone else: a mix of good and bad, frightened and brave. And yet, despite their intelligence, Kallie’s family, like the majority of healthy people, adamantly believed the doomed were plotting to infect the world.
Kallie had never seen any statistics or news footage to confirm the existence of these alleged communes; and the infected patients she had encountered were no worse than any other terrified, selfish citizen. Everyone in the world wanted to live. Everyone in the world was afraid to die. It was as simple as that.
Unfortunately, no one in her family shared the same opinion. Her mother was the worst, telling Kallie she was silly to think the government would stop funding national parks if the outdoors were truly good for people’s health. Having mother call her silly stung worse than any of the condescending and dismissive comments made by her father and brothers. Women were supposed to support each other not tear each other down. So much for sisterhood.
Like a dog drying itself from a bath, Kallie shook away the thoughts and descended into the ravine. According to Eddie, his pop had built their homestead along the river. The glorified creek below, winding its way through the mountains, was the only water in sight. Kallie intended to follow it until she found the Spinks or ran out of sunlight.
Eddie’s parting jab echoed in her mind: “Can’t see you packin’ your gear down the river bank. Probably fall in and mess up that nice white suit.”
Not going to happen.
After forty minutes of clumsy rock jumping and mud sliding, Kallie found the settlement in a clearing between the river and the mountain—along with two barking, charging beasts.
“Oh my God,” she said, dashing for a boulder. The mutts changed their course to intercept. “Help,” she yelled. “Can you hear me? Call off your dogs!”
She leaped onto the side and scrambled up the face while the feral creatures lunged at her feet. Once safe on the top, Kallie waved at the cabins. “Hello? Can you hear me? Eddie sent me!” She looked down at the yellow-brown dogs yapping and scratching at the rock. “It’s okay. I’m a friend. Really.”
A gun fired, the dogs yelped, and a man shouted for them to heel. Kallie raised her hands over her head as the mutts raced to their master, a wizened man with a crippled leg.
“What you doing here, girl? You don’t belong.”
Kallie nodded. She surely didn’t. “Eddie had an accident. He said you didn’t have a phone, so I came out to tell you. He crashed the motorcycle.”
The man stopped and slumped over his rifle, shaking his head and muttering to himself. After a moment he straightened his crooked back and motioned her off the rock with the muzzle of the gun.
“Come on down. Them pups won’t hurt you.”
Kallie eyed the snarling dogs. “You sure about that? They look kind of wild.”
The man smiled and shushed his pets. “They got some coyote mixed in, but they do what I tell ’em.”
She pointed to the gear hanging from her pocket. “I’m just going to put on my mask and gloves, okay?”
He nodded. “Suit yourself.”
The man had no such protection. With his wide brimmed hat and overstretched tank—sagging to expose an equally sagging chest—he seemed more concerned about getting sunstroke than contracting germs.
Once she had the protective equipment securely fitted, she climbed down from the boulder. The mongrels stayed beside their master.
“So,” said the man. “How’s my boy?” His voice trembled.
Kallie understood. Even the slightest cut could become infected. She wished that was all she had to report. “He fractured his knee,” she said, keeping her voice professional and dispassionate.
“They gon’ operate?”
She shook her head. “I’m deeply sorry, Mr. Spinks. He didn’t make it.”
He raised the gun. “What you tellin’ me? My boy’s dead?”
Kallie held up her hands and tried to remain calm. “It wasn’t a clean break. A truck ran him down. Crushed his leg between his bike and a wall.” Her voice trembled. “I don’t know what happened. He just—died.”
“What you mean ‘he just died?’ Ain’t nobody just die lessen somethin’ or somebody kill him.”
“I know. You’re right. That’s why I’m here. I’m a doctor. I was Eddie’s doctor,” she added, inanely. “Look, I want to ask you some questions.”
Mr. Spinks shook his head and spit. “What I got to tell you? You the one takin’ care of my boy. You tell me why he died.”
“Sure. Just put away the gun, okay? Then we’ll talk.”
Mr. Spinks stared at Kallie for a long time. Then he lowered the rifle, hawked, and spit again.
“Thank you.”
Mr. Spinks jutted his chin. “Well? Say your piece.”
Kallie nodded and took a fortifying breath, praying the man wouldn’t change his mind and shoot her. “Eddie believed the driver of the truck hit him on purpose because he thought Eddie was someone named Jacob. Do you know Jacob? Is he a neighbor?”
When Mr. Spinks didn’t respond, she continued a little faster. “Eddie said he worked in a government lab and knew about infections. That he worked on top secret experiments with germs and rats. Do you know who I’m talking about? Does Jacob live around here?”
Mr. Spinks fingered the trigger. “What you want with Jacob?”
“So you do know him,” she said, nearly laughing with relief. “That’s great. Where can I find him?”
An elderly woman stood at the porch while a couple of women nearer to Kallie’s mother’s age approached with four girls following behind. Not one of them wore long sleeves, masks, or gloves.
“Get back in the house, Sue. This ain’t no concern of yours.”
The woman stopped and hugged her girls. “This have somethin’ to do with Ed?”
Mr. Spinks raised his rifle and pointed it at Kallie. “Do as I say. I’ll be in once this doctor is on her way.” He spat the word “doctor” as if it was the foulest thing he had ever been forced to say.
“Please. I know you’re angry,” said Kallie. “But if Jacob has information about fighting infections, wouldn’t you want me to know?” She glanced at his family. “For your kids?”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with my kids.”
“There wasn’t anything wrong with Eddie, either. Until there was.”
Mr. Spinks glared at Kallie, who glared back defiantly. Neither spoke. Neither flinched. Finally, he huffed then pointed the barrel up the river.
“Back that way couple hundred paces. Through the gap in the rocks.”
Kallie nodded and backed away. When she felt the soft soil of the river bank give beneath her shoes, she ran.
***
Kallie approached the cabin with caution, ready to bolt up a tree at the first sign of dogs. So far, all was quiet. Jacob had nestled his home in a grove of alders and pines, and since he had used the same woods to build his cabin, it blended perfectly. A less determined person would never have found it.
Not for the first time, Kallie wondered about her judgment. It was one thing to mistrust society from the comfort and protection of her home and hospital; it was quite another to hunt for trouble in the wilderness. What if Jacob had something worse than snarling dogs and a loaded rifle?
“Then I’m screwed,” she muttered.
Guilt over losing her patient and an exalted sense of personal responsibility had set her on this path; stubbornness wouldn’t let her leave it.
She took a couple more steps, thought better of it, and stopped a few yards short. While the laughable distance wouldn’t keep her safe from a psycho redneck murderer, those few yards made her feel a teeny bit more secure.
“Hello? Is anyone home?”
A gruff voice spoke from behind. “Who’s asking?”
She yelped and whirled to see who had startled her. He was a big man—broader and more muscular than any of her brothers—with bushy brows and ill-cropped facial hair. His sleeves were short and his collar unbuttoned to the chest. He wore black-rimmed glasses with powerful prescriptions that magnified an accusing glare. A short-barrel shotgun rested at his hip, aimed at her belly.
Kallie raised her hands, realizing too late that the gloves and mask made her look like a government health investigator. Somehow, she didn’t think this man would appreciate those sorts of people.
“I’m a doctor. Eddie’s father told me where to find you.”
“Hm. And why would he do that?”
“Because Eddie died last night.”
Instead of shock or gruff dismissal, the man loomed over her, like a buzzard inspecting a dying mouse. “Of natural causes?”
Kallie shook her head. “I don’t think so. He came in with a fractured patella. Said a guy in a truck plowed into him because he thought Eddie was you.”
The man bit his lip and shook his head so violently Kallie feared he might be having a seizure. Then he blasted out a gust of air and shook his head some more.
“Goddamnit! God damn them all to hell. Sons of bitches want a piece of me?” He glared up at the sky and yelled. “You want a piece of me? You sons of—” he peered back at Kallie, as if remembering she was there. “What do you want?” He shoved the stubby barrel at her stomach. “Start talking, or I’ll blast a hole through your belly so big… What are you after? Why are you here? Who are you?”
He fired his questions in ever-loudening bursts, causing Kallie to stagger, heart pounding, hot breath steaming her mask.
“Nothing,” she gasped. “I mean… I just want to know what’s going on. Eddie said you used to work in a government lab and that you knew all sorts of secrets regarding infections. I don’t want to cause any trouble. Honest. I’m just a doctor looking for answers.”
He grunted a bitter laugh. “An honest doctor? That’s a good one. Follow it up with the collective good and evil drugs and you got yourself a comedy routine.” He lowered the barrel and walked toward her, chuckling at his own joke and muttering about arrogant assheads. “Go home. I don’t have time for your ignorance.”
Kallie’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?” She had enough of being dismissed, first by her attending physician and then by her parents. She wasn’t about to get dismissed by a shaggy-faced, hulking, middle-aged lab rat.
“I’m not ignorant, and I’m sure as hell not a liar. And I’m not going home after driving all this way and hiking into bum-fuck nowhere without the truth.” She tore off her mask and planted her fists on her hips.
To hell with germs. She wanted him to quake in her fury.
Instead he laughed.
“This isn’t funny,” she said.
He glared at her with dark predatory eyes. “No. It isn’t.” Then as if to prove his disdain for her and any germs she might be carrying, he headed on his way, passing so close the hairs on his arms brushed against the sleeve of her shirt.
Kallie froze, paralyzed by the thought of deadly germs crawling up her sleeve. Over her collar. Up her neck. Into her mouth. Her nose. Her eyes.
“Wait,” she said, jolting herself out of the horrifying vision. “Why do you hate doctors?”
He turned around and adjusted his eyeglass as if to better inspect a curious bug. “Why did you risk contamination? Your family couldn’t have been pleased to have you abscond with their one government-allotted car, not to mention having their daughter communing with disease-ridden rednecks in—How did you put it? Bum-fuck nowhere?” He chortled. “That’s actually pretty good. Never mind. You want to know what I know?” He tossed his head and walked away. “Come and get it.”
When he reached his cabin, he left the door open.
Kallie stood mute as indignation warred with doubt. This man, whom she assumed to be Jacob, offended her deeply. And yet, she wanted him to approve of her actions and appreciate her motives. She wanted him to acknowledge that she was one of the good guys. That she had sacrificed time and money and risked her life to come out here in the pursuit of truth. But how could she explain what she didn’t fully understand?
She stuffed the mask and gloves in her pockets. She had come this far; she’d be damned if she'd run back home without answers.
***
The cabin’s shutters stood open to bring in the light and the breeze, making the space seem larger and more welcoming than she expected. Jacob propped his shotgun in the corner of the kitchen area and fetched two blue-speckled cups, which he filled with coffee from a matching metal pot on a wood-burning stove.
“Milk’s too hard to keep around here. Don’t use it. Don’t want it.”
Kallie nodded. “Black’s fine.”
He stepped over the bench in front of a plank table and sat, gesturing for her to do the same on the opposite side. “My name’s Jacob Roszak, but I guess you already know that.”
“Kallie Anderson.”
He sipped his coffee. “So why are you sitting in a stranger’s cabin, drinking his coffee from a possibly germ-infected cup?”
She raised her chin and glared down her nose. “Why did you invite an unprotected stranger into your home?” She took a long, deliberate sip.
His mouth twitched into something close to a grin. “How’d they kill Eddie?”
“They?”
Jacob waved a hand. “Stop wasting my time, and answer the question.”
Kallie shook her head. “I think it was a him. I saw a man leave Eddie’s room just before I went in.” She shivered despite the heat. “Something about him bothered me. Anyway, I don’t know how, or even if he did it; and since my request for an autopsy and toxicology report was denied, I never will.”
“Doesn’t matter. Eddie’s dead. I’m not. They’ll keep coming. Sons of bitches will always keep coming. The question is: Why do you care?”
Kallie stared into his harsh dark eyes. Who was he to challenge her? A rogue chemist? A medical researcher gone off the deep end? A burnt-out government worker hiding from the big bad world? She faced her challenges. She worked in the trenches, day after day, risking her life to save others. Why did she care?
“Because I’m a doctor. It’s what I do. And I want to know why you’re not worried about contamination.”
Jacob snorted. “Never said I wasn’t worried. Bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites—every microbe known to man is mutating faster than a hammerhead viroid. Anyone with half a cell in his brain would be terrified.”
“You don’t look it.”
“Well, I am. Just not of you. You’re too full of yourself to be a health risk.”
“I’m full of myself?”
He flapped his hand in the air, as if her sarcasm was of no consequence. Then he swung his legs over the bench and paced through the kitchen and living areas, muttering about virulent strains and resistant superbugs. When he returned, he straddled the bench beside her and thrust his face uncomfortably close to hers. “Can you handle the truth?” he asked.
“What truth?”
He exhaled with frustration and rubbed his sloppily cropped hair, like he was trying to rid it of lice. Then he grabbed her by both arms and twisted her torso so she would face him squarely. “Have you ever felt like your world is closing in on you? That your freedoms are getting stripped away?”
Kallie glanced at his bare hands on the sleeves of her blouse and tried not to think about those crawling germs. “Well, sure. Hasn’t everyone?”
“No. They’re too scared to notice or too ignorant to object.”
Kallie shrugged her arms out of his grip. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned ignorance. What is it you think you know that I don’t?”
“Finally,” he said, flinging up his hands and clenching his fists. “Something intelligent.” He laced his hairy fingers, rested his meaty forearms on his thighs, and peered at Kallie. “I was a medical research scientist for the Gildenberg Consortium. Do you know who they are?” When Kallie shook her head, he mimicked her. “Of course you don’t. They’re an exclusive international group of the most influential people of our time: world leaders, politicians, billionaires, experts in science, finance, industry, media—any expertise deemed essential by the consortium to govern civilization and control the world.”
Kallie shifted to put more distance between them. “Oh my God. You’re a conspiracy nut.”
“It’s not conspiracy if you have proof.”
“What proof?”
“An antibiotic against the most virulent strain of staff infection and an antiviral for the flu that just wiped out a hamlet in Upstate New York.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” Jacob scooted closer. “Do you know why all the countries agreed to follow the advice of the Global Health Association? Because members of the Gildenberg Consortium hold influential positions—sometimes the highest positions—in every major government in the world.”
Kallie shrugged. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Jacob frowned—and made a noise that implied he might have overestimated her intelligence—before stating the obvious. “Control and power. The easiest way to control a population is to isolate its factions and convince them to self-restrict. And the most efficient way to get a population to self-restrict is to prove a credible threat. Control the narrative, and make sure the faction leaders are rewarded by the loss of their community’s freedom.”
“This isn’t the Middle East. Our country doesn’t have factions.”
“Of course it does. The patriarchal family tribes.”
Kallie stared at him in shock. “My grandfather is not working with the government.”
“Not willingly. But answer me this: Would your grandfather still be in control if you were allowed to live anywhere you wanted and marry whomever you wished?”
“You’re crazy.”
Jacob chuckled. “Maybe. But not about this. Women’s rights have been deteriorating ever since our world leaders declared a global state of emergency in 2021, and POTUS announced his revolutionary Five Year Plan. You’re too young to know, but at that time, our government offered huge tax credits and major discounts for early adapters who fell in line with the new living and transportation restrictions. Why do you think they did that?” When Kallie didn’t respond, he answered for her. “Because it was in the best interest of the government—and the Gildenberg Consortium that runs it—to have everyone sell off their individual homes and cars so families could join together in large, easy-to-manage compounds.”
“That’s not the reason,” she said, feeling more confident. “The government was trying to keep people from infecting each other. Everyone knows germs spread fastest in a crowd. It made sense to limit public interaction and avoid high concentrations of people. If we didn’t live with family, we’d probably die of loneliness. So you’re wrong, Jacob. Tribal living benefits Americans, and our government spent billions to help us do it.”
Jacob stared back, dumbfounded. “You really believe that shit, don’t you?”
His astonishment unsettled her. “Well, sure.”
“And what about the cars? Do you agree with the allotment of one vehicle to every tribe? How’s that working for you?”
Kallie shrugged. “It’s hard, sure; but it’s not my place to agree or not.”
Jacob leapt from the bench and loomed over her, eyes blazing with rage.
“The hell it isn’t! This is exactly what I’m talking about.”
He threw up his hands and marched through the cabin, preaching to every seat and space as if they were occupied by members of a particularly thick-headed congregation. “Those sons of bitches turned our mass transit into goddamn death chambers, spraying passengers like cattle in a slaughterhouse, dousing them with UV radiation. And when those who could afford it went back to their cars and gridlocked traffic, as any intelligent person could have predicted, what did our wise and compassionate leaders do? Did they increase carpool lanes? Improve filtration systems in trains? No. They recalled the cars, destroyed the majority, and redistributed one vehicle per family tribe.”
He circled his hand in an all-encompassing gesture as he stalked through his kitchen then stopped on the other side of the table. “They made traveling so untenable that we, as a society, chose to work, shop, play, and study at home.” He planted his hands on the table and glared at Kallie. “They manipulated us into self-incarceration, and you won’t question the government? Bullshit!” he yelled, hammering his fist on the wood. “You’re a doctor. Caring is what you do.”
Kallie flinched as her own words hit her in the face.
Much as she wanted to deny it, she feared Jacob was right. She was full of herself and hopelessly naive. Sure, she might argue with her parents about the unreasonableness of their fears and the ridiculous restrictions they heaped onto their already restricted lives; but it never occurred to her to challenge the legitimacy government law. After all, the president’s Five Year Plan went into effect nineteen years before she was born. She had lived her entire life subjugated by the restrictions and hazardous practices Jacob had described.
“You’re seeing it now, aren’t you?” Jacob said, stepping over the bench to sit.
Kallie tilted her head, somewhere between a nod and a shake. “I don’t know. We do seem to be feeding our own fear. But no one’s forcing us to stay indoors and cling to people who look, act, and think like we do. And as far as I know, the government never said we had to send our girls away to other families or replace dating with computer algorithms.” She shrugged and shook her head, apologetically. “I’m sorry, Jacob. I get what you’re saying about the tribes. And men definitely have the power. I just don’t buy into this global conspiracy. We did this to ourselves.”
He heaved a sigh so loud even Kallie’s grandfather would have been impressed.
“You’re underestimating the reach and influence of the Gildenberg Consortium. Who do you think manufactured all the antimicrobials that caused the pandemic of 2021? Who do you think fueled hysteria and manipulated social reform? Who do you think defined a crisis so eloquently they convinced a global super power to buy into their fully tested, fully functioning solutions? And not just our country: Those sons of bitches hijacked the whole God damn world.”
Now it was Kallie’s turn to stand and pace. “This is crazy. Antimicrobial Resistance is science. Even Alexander Fleming acknowledged the dangers of penicillin soon after he discovered it. You can’t blame the Gildenberg Consortium for the Post-Antimicrobial Era.”
“Bullshit! Who do you think determines so called scientific fact? Every medical reality you think you know has been fed to you by experts and officials governed by them.”
Kallie stared agape. “You’re delusional.”
Jacob didn’t bother to answer; he just stood up and walked out of the room. A minute later, he returned from his bedroom with two security boxes. He kept one in front of him and pushed the other across the table for her.
“What’s this?” Kallie asked, sitting back on the bench.
Jacob reached over and opened the box in front of her. A hundred tiny bottles lined up in five color-coordinated rows. Jacob placed his finger on the first bottle in each row as he explained their contents. “Antibacterial, antifungal, antiparasitic, antiviral for influenza, and an antiviral for chickenpox.”
Kallie shook her head. “Impossible. We’ve exhausted every antimicrobial known to science, and every new discovery has met with immediate pathogen mutation. These bottles might contain what you say, but they won’t cure anything.”
Jacob opened the box nearest to him and turned it to face her. “Test them.”
Kallie stared at the vials, color-coordinated to match the alleged medications. Each of the five colors was marked with the most recent strains of a different horrifying disease. Kallie leaned back, instinctively trying to put distance between herself and the vials.
“You’re mad.”
“No,” he said. “I’m a research scientist tired of watching the world go to hell.”
Kallie looked from her box to his and back again. The virulent staff infection labeled on the orange-capped vial had infected nineteen patients, six nurses, and two doctors before the infectious disease team had isolated the contamination. All those infected died within a week to a month of contraction. She didn’t want to consider the pandemic that could arise from the contents of the vial with the blue cap.
She closed her eyes. “Okay,” she said, opening them again when she felt brave enough to continue. “Supposing everything you’ve said is true, how did you get these vials out of your lab? There must have been security. If the Gildenberg Consortium has even a quarter of the power you suggest, why are you still alive?”
Jacob smirked. “Who says I’m alive? It took three years to replicate and smuggle what you see in these boxes, followed by a very public and very thorough death. Unfortunately, it took so long that three of those cures no longer work with the current mutated strains of fungi, parasite, and chickenpox. That’s why we need to act immediately.”
Kallie gasped. “We? I don’t know what you’re planning, but I’m not doing anything with you. Or with those. I’m a doctor. I’m sworn to—”
“Kill? Because that’s what you’re doing, you and your chickenshit colleagues. Blaming your failures on antibacterial resistant infections when the truth is you’ve given up the damn fight. While you’re sentencing poor saps like Eddie Spink to death, privileged people all around the world are getting cured. Clinical researchers in consortium-funded labs, like the one where I used to work, are generating new drugs every week for consortium-funded doctors to administer in astronomically expensive multi-drug blasts designed to confound even the quickest mutating pathogens. A process, by the way, that was only made possible because of the forty-eight-year global ban against using antimicrobials. While the rest of the world has been suffering and dying for the greater good, these selfish pricks have been shooting up and having a God damn party.” Jacob jabbed his finger into the wood. “The Gildenberg Consortium is dividing humanity into masters and slaves—and every one of us is helping them do it.”
As outlandish as it sounded, everything Jacob said rang true.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Do you believe in coincidences? I don’t. You wandered onto my property because I need you.”
“Need me? What for?”
“I’m going to lock up the National News Corporation using an advanced sealant, stolen from another consortium-funded lab by a recently murdered friend of mine. Then I’m going to gas the studio with a fast-acting, lethal strain of influenza. When people start to die, I’ll let them know where in the studio I hid the cure, along with the level-four restricted syringes that you will supply. The NNC will televise their exclusive and highly dramatic story, along with my carefully crafted statement describing the facts I have just shared with you. They won’t care that the use and manufacturing of antivirals are outlawed, nor will they cling to their propaganda-inspired belief that they won’t work. They will inject themselves with the drugs because they’ll want to live. By the time rescue teams break into the studio, the influenza will have been arrested and my statements will have been proved.”
Kallie stared in horror. “No. Absolutely not. I won’t help you, and your plan wouldn’t work even if I did. You said it yourself, that consortium will make you out to be a bioterrorist nut-job. They’ll make everyone think it was a hoax.”
He shook his head. “Not everyone. People all over the world will start to question and resist. They’ll stop blindly submitting to government restrictions and demand a vote. Women will stop allowing and contributing to their own subjugation. The patriarchal family tribes will deteriorate. Doctors and scientists will dare to experiment again with drugs and treatments and discover the truth. The Gildenberg Consortium will fail. I’ll be dead, of course—that’s inevitable—but my actions might save humanity.” He leaned forward and fixed her with an uncompromising gaze. “How many lives will you save with your bogus excuse for medicine?”
***
One week later, Kallie stood at the door of CADLab working up the courage to either enter or run like hell. Inside her pocket she fondled two rolls of mints, a lipstick, and a round, stubby marker. They clicked together like ticking bombs. She pulled her hand away. What was she thinking? The contents of the vial hidden inside one of those harmless items could start an epidemic.
Or could it?
She had tallied the pros and cons and compared them, ad nauseam, followed by a long and serious discussion with Amy Lee over a sterilized cup of coffee at the dispenser shop across from the lab. In the end, they had agreed to take the risk. Amy, like Kallie, needed to know.
They had to know the truth.
Kallie hit the call button and was buzzed through the security door and metal detector to reception, where Fred, a medical university graduate and aspiring researcher, asked for her identification. While they had met on several occasions, CADLab policy required Fred to scan her driver’s license. Kallie’s name would be entered into the records. Anyone who checked would know she had come to visit Amy.
“Identification?” Fred asked again.
Kallie shivered. If Amy got caught analyzing the contents of these bottles, they’d both get thrown in prison without a trial.
“Sorry, Fred. I spaced out for a sec.” She took out her wallet and handed him the card. “Here you go.”
Fred scanned the license, returned it, and buzzed Kallie through the next door.
“Go on in. I’ll let her know you’re here.”
At the end of the office-lined corridor, Kallie saw yet another security door, this one programmed with a palm-reading. The door opened, and a curvy Asian in a long white coat emerged. Aside from the straight hair braided to the middle of her narrow shoulders, Amy didn’t resemble Kallie in any physical way. Her stubbornness, on the other hand, rivaled any Anderson.
Amy gestured to a cushioned arm chair and took a seat behind her desk. “How’ve you been, Kal? It feels like forever since I’ve seen you.”
Not true, of course; but the casual conversation that ensued gave Kallie a chance to surreptitiously stuff the mints, lipstick, and marker between the cushion and the side of her chair. After she left, Amy would find a reason to straighten up and pocket the items. In this way she could sneak the vials into her lab without raising suspicions. CADLab screened their researches. The small cylindrical items Kallie had brought into the facility, while unremarkable for a visitor, would have raised flags for Amy.
***
Seven agonizing days passed before Kallie received a call from Amy asking her to meet at the coffee shop. During that time, Kallie had not returned to the San Gabriel Wilderness, and since Jacob Roszak didn’t have a telephone, she had not spoken to the man who would might possibly become humanity’s savior. Or one of the worst bioterrorists of the new millennium. That verdict depended on whether the two antimicrobials secreted in the lipstick and marker were effective against the respective bacteria and virus hidden in the two rolls of mints.
Savior or terrorist?
Kallie had been so eager to hear the results she had walked five miles rather than risk carpool delays with the family van. Now she was on her second cup of coffee. Without taking her eyes off the CADLab building, she pulled the lid off her sanitized cup, leaned in for a sip, then put the cup down. She couldn’t stand it any longer. She had to call.
Amy answered on the second ring. “Hi Kallie. I’m heading for the door. Be out in a sec.”
The door opened. Amy stepped out of the lab. Kallie raised a hand to wave through the window. A second later, the world exploded.
The detonation shook Kallie off her chair and shattered the shop’s front window, spraying her with shards of glass. She felt her chest heave with a scream but was too deaf to hear the sound. Her head throbbed. Blood dripped in her eye. She staggered to the door. People screamed and shouted as they raced into the street to see what had happened. Some of them, like Kallie, bled from wounds. In the hysteria, Kallie searched for Amy, praying what she had seen hadn’t actually occurred—that somehow, Amy had been knocked away by the explosion instead of blasted into pulp.
Fire leapt to nearby buildings, adding to the panic. Kallie rubbed the grit from her eyes and peered through the smoke. She couldn’t find Amy, but she did see two brawny men in black paramilitary uniforms cutting through the panicked crowd and heading straight toward her. Fear gripped her gut. They had to be first responders here to help the injured or put out the fire. They couldn’t be after her.
Why would anyone be after her?
But even as she asked the question, she knew the answer—everything Jacob Roszak had told her was true.
Kallie ducked behind a couple of men in blue company caps and throat-to-boot coveralls, staring over the white cups of their respiratory masks in horrified amazement at the destruction across the street. She left them to it and ran, staying low, behind the row of curbside cars before sprinting into an alley. Bullets struck the corner building, chipping bits of brick and mortar—and with them, any lingering doubts she might have had.
Whoever had blown up the lab and murdered Amy was after her.
***
Three hours later, Kallie drove a stolen coupe into the Hidden Springs Campsite, where she pulled off the broken asphalt lot, drove over an eroded curb, and followed a rocky path deep into the trees. Later, she might come back and use branches to further hide the car from the campsite. For now, she just needed the dense pines to conceal the vehicle from roaming helicopters.
She had no delusions. Kallie knew her life, as she had always known it, was over. She couldn’t go home. She couldn’t endanger her friends. And she’d never become a full-fledged physician. But none of that mattered anymore.
She grabbed the box of level-four restricted syringes she had pilfered from the hospital storage room and stepped out of the car. She’d never save another hospital patient, but maybe, she could help Jacob save the world.