Elixr Plague (Episode 2): Infected Read online

  “I do,” the pilot said, his voice tight.

  “What you don’t know is that I am critical to Mr. Martin’s business,” she continued, thinking of the small shielded box in her backpack that contained the computer core from Martin Enterprises Global HQ and the Elixr sample. It was perhaps the most valuable asset the company owned. “I assure you, Mr. Martin will be extremely grateful to you for assisting me this morning. You said you were worried about your family?”

  “Well, my daughter, really—my ex-wife can go take a long walk off a short pier, if you know what I mean,” the pilot said.

  “How old is your daughter?”

  “She’ll be 4 next month.”

  Edith nodded. “I have a niece who’ll be 4 in two weeks,” she lied. She possessed no moral compunctions against lying to get her way, as long as it wasn’t hurting anyone. She needed to stop at home, almost as bad as she needed to get the computer core and sample to a safe location. She’d been preparing all her adult life for a crisis of this magnitude—though she’d always thought civilization would end with a silent flare in orbit that wiped out humanity’s access to electric power—and she would be damned if she let a skittish pilot prevent her from reaching all the supplies and gear she’d been amassing for the past decade.

  If she could just get home, everything would be okay—despite what the pandemonium taking place a thousand feet below seemed to indicate. New York might very well tear itself in half, but if she could get to her gear, Edith was confident not only that she’d survive, but that she’d complete her mission for Martin.

  She just had to get home.

  “I get it…I really do…” the pilot said. His words implied he was going to say no, but his voice said make it worth my while. Edith had been in negotiating rooms with Martin for years—she recognized how the game was played.

  “What do you need to take care of…I’m sorry, what’s your daughter’s name?”

  “Mackenzie. Big Mac, we call her…because she’s so small…” He sighed. “I know, stupid dad joke…”

  Edith forced out a fake but appropriately empathetic laugh. “No, I get it. What do you need to take care of Mackenzie, to keep her safe?”

  The pilot was quiet for a moment, then struggled with the controls for a second when they hit some turbulence. When Edith’s stomach climbed back into place from the floor, he spoke. “I don’t know what you could do to help—I’ve got to get to my parent’s house, pick them up, then get to Jersey, or maybe Upstate. Depends on which way the military is blocking air traffic.”

  Edith smiled. “I know where they’re shutting air travel down first.”

  The pilot turned to look at her. “If I knew that, I could save time and that might give us a chance.”

  “Take me to my condo first—you know the building, the penthouse has private access to the heliport.”

  He turned away. “I know the building…but…”

  “You’re going to need a place to land this thing after you pick up your family—and supplies, too. Food, water…right?”

  “Jesus,” he said, looking down out the window.

  She looked out her own window in time to see an orange fireball dissipating down below in a cloud of smoke. Her heart rate picked up. Things were devolving in the city faster than she’d anticipated, and she’d played ‘what if’ games in her head for years about how fast things might fall apart in a major disaster. Edith focused on the pilot, willing the desperation from her voice. She was so close, she could see her building in the distance.

  “Tell me which way to go,” the pilot begged.

  Edith shook her head. “Get me to my building and land. I’ll tell you where to go. If you bring me with you to get your family, I’ll take you to a secure location that’s stocked with years and years worth of food and water.”

  “Won’t Mr. Martin think that’s a bit much for a tip?” He hadn’t said yes, but Edith noticed he’d changed course to angle in toward her building. They were no longer heading toward LaGuardia.

  She sat back and closed her eyes in triumph. “No, he won’t mind at all…in fact,” she said thoughtfully, “he’ll probably make you the owner of the place as soon as he finds out how you helped me—and fill your bank account, too.”

  They landed with a soft bump, and Edith moved to exit out the side door, but the pilot grabbed her arm. “Which way!” he yelled over the noise of the rotors as she opened the door.

  Edith tensed under his vise-like grip. She shrugged the backpack with its precious cargo onto her free arm and nodded. “You want to go east. They’re going to cut off the western side of Manhattan first, then close off Long Island.”

  “Christ…” the pilot said, releasing her arm, his hands trembling as he sat back in his seat.

  “Wait for me, and your family’s survival is guaranteed,” she yelled, loose strands of her hair whipping across her face, driven mad by the backlash. “Wait for me!” she repeated.

  The pilot nodded weakly and waved her off.

  She didn’t stick around to confirm his frame of mind. Edith hopped down from the skid and sprinted—crouched—for the door that led down inside her apartment building.

  Barging through the door, the first thing that hit her was a wall of smoke. Her nose twitched at the acrid scent of burning plastic. There was a fire somewhere down in her building. Ignoring the burning in her throat and the tears in her eyes, she bolted down the metal stairs and made it to her floor. Crashing through the door, she escaped the worst of the smoke.

  Edith doubled over and coughed uncontrollably, fearing she might tear something as she leaned against the stairwell door on her floor. The smoke burned her eyes and blurred her vision, though she could tell there wasn’t more than a light haze in the hallway. She staggered to her door and used her palm to access the biometric lock, then slipped inside, relishing the cool, clear air of her luxury condo.

  Thanks to Desmond Martin, her suite had its own water and HVAC supply, completely separate from the building. He’d even installed a generator on the roof at terrible expense, to make sure she could function normally in an emergency and keep his business afloat.

  She’d always considered his customization of her home as an unneeded expense until now. Breathing in the clear air, the spasming in her chest subsided long enough for her to deposit her pack on the nearest counter and move into the open concept kitchen to splash water on her face in the sink to clear her eyes.

  Edith toweled off and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, then stormed to her bedroom, uncaring about the soot stains her pumps left on the floor. She moved over to the large closet that occupied the far wall and opened the right-hand door. The left side contained her entire extensive wardrobe, but the right side was for her preparedness gear.

  An overhead LED clicked on when she opened the door. Selecting rugged but casual clothes, she tossed them on the bed and proceeded to rip off her soot-streaked business suit as fast as her trembling hands would work. Standing there in her bra and panties, she gasped when she saw how dark the smoke had made the exposed skin of her chest, hands, and face. She grabbed the clothes off the bed and dressed, counting down how many minutes she might have left before the pilot decided to leave without her.

  Edith was fairly certain that he’d wait at least five minutes—she had promised a haven for his family after all, and more money than he could spend in three lifetimes—but she didn’t want to take any chances. Once dressed in plain brown cargo pants, a utility shirt and matching brown belt, she grabbed her hiking boots and laced up, wishing she could move faster.

  She checked her watch. Two minutes. Reaching inside the closet again, she pulled out a bigger version of the pack she’d brought from HQ. This pack was her bug out bag—it contained three days worth of clean clothes and socks, dried food, bottled water, a water purification tube, gear for fire-starting and making rudimentary shelter, and a fixed blade knife. She tossed it on the bed and grabbed a thin sleeping bag and added that to the pile as
well.

  Another time check revealed she’d been inside for four minutes. Her heart racing, she stepped back into the closet and opened the gun safe built into the far wall behind a swing out shoe rack. Another LED light illuminated her arsenal.

  She grabbed her favorite compact semi-auto pistol and three magazines already loaded with self defense rounds. Those went into the pockets in her cargo pants and the gun went in a concealed paddle holster she’d grabbed from the shelf next to the weapon. Her gaze rested on the custom built AR. She didn’t think the pilot would appreciate her showing up armed to the teeth for a ride with his family, but then realized if nothing else, she might use it to sweeten the deal she’d made. If it really was the apocalypse, he might need a rifle, sooner rather than later.

  Edith wasn’t worried about her own gear. She had supply caches—some containing weapons—spread across the country outside cities she regularly visited for Martin in the course of her employment. As laws on weapons grew stricter and stricter, it helped her mitigate the risk of being “caught” with a stockpile of weapons and ammo in her closet should authorities ever have reason to search her apartment. Martin had agreed and had even helped her purchase most of the gear that now lay buried in dozens of cities around the country.

  She had no hope of memorizing the location of all those caches, but in her pack she also had a GPS reader and a coded notebook filled with the locations of her gear. She never honestly expected to need that gear and in a few cases had given it away to certain prepper friends, but now she was grateful to not need to carry everything with her.

  Edith dropped the rifle and extra ammo on the bed and strapped the sleeping bag to the BOB. She reached inside the closet and up on top of the trim around the door found the tiny thumb drive that contained encrypted copies of all her vital documents, including the coded cache locations. She had a paper copy of the cache locations in the pack itself, but always liked to keep a backup on her person. She slipped the thumb drive into the custom sewn pocket inside her waistband and pulled the BOB onto her shoulders. Strapping the rifle across her chest in a three point combat sling, she headed back into the kitchen, loaded the pockets on her pack with bottles of water, then grabbed the Martin Enterprises pack and headed back to the roof.

  4

  Explorers

  Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

  Darren Bruce looked up from the muck and mud lined pit in which he knelt and smiled broadly. “Can you believe this?” he yelled. Next to him, three other grad students whooped. Straining in unison, the four of them lifted a long, curved plank of ancient wood free of the mud and handed it carefully to the line of people up on the surface.

  Darren turned and high-fived the grad student next to him—Piper—slopping mud over both. They laughed as the people lining the pit clapped and took pictures. He tossed his head and flipped a long lock of sweaty hair out of his face.

  “Enjoy this moment, everyone,” said Professor Turgin from the corner of the excavation, his eyes owl-like behind round, mud-flecked glasses. A local news crew stood behind him on the rim, filming the event. “Today, we change American history forever!”

  After another round of applause, Darren took a proffered hand and felt himself pulled free of the deep mud along the Saint Mary River. He clambered up the steep, weeping sides of the dig and tried in vain to wipe clingy substrate from his jeans. Morgan, another grad student with Professor Turgin’s group, scrambled over the lip, laughing at the loss of his boot five feet below.

  An attractive reporter in a clean, sharp business suit sidled up to Darren and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, I’m Cindy Lowen, Channel 6 News—do you mind if we interview you?”

  Darren laughed, pulling his unruly shoulder length hair behind his head and securing it with a leather thong—no man bun for a descendant of Robert the Bruce, king of Scots. “Sure, why not?” Darren nodded his thanks to one of the others who handed him a water bottle, broke the seal, and drained half in one gulp. “Whatcha got?”

  “Well, for starters, why don’t you tell the folks out there who you are and what university you’re with? I understand there’s several schools from the Great Lakes region represented here today…”

  “Sure, sure. Well, I’m Darren Bruce,” he said, slapping a mud caked hand to his broad chest, “uh, Northern Michigan University, working on my PhD in early Medieval history,” he finished, looking down at his filthy shirt. “I’m here with Professor Albert Turgin, on behalf of the College of Medieval Studies.”

  “What exactly did you just do? It looked like several of you pulled a rather large stick from the mud. How is that significant to the history of America, as Professor Turgin put it?”

  “Well, that ‘stick’ was a hull strake from a viking longboat. I’d guess it was sunk or somehow left to be buried in the mud along the river bank around the year 1,000, like L’Anse aux Meadows, in Newfoundland.”

  “Vikings?” asked Lowen, leaning the microphone toward Darren.

  He nodded. “When you think about it, it’s not that much of a stretch to see them sailing along the St. Lawrence from the coast and heading inland. I mean, all they had to do was follow the rivers inland, and they’d discover Lake Ontario, right? What’s that compared to crossing the North Atlantic without a compass? Given enough time, I’m sure they could have made it here.”

  “So this ties into the supposed viking-style settlement discovered at this location in Sault Ste. Marie last October?”

  Darren nodded. “That’s right. We’ve—well, the archaeologists in charge of the project—have been theorizing that the settlement found here was in fact established by Scandinavian people…” he took another swig of the cool water. “Based on the artifacts we’ve uncovered, of course…like pipes, knives, and more specifically, several amulets that have a remarkable resemblance to traditional Thor’s hammer charms common in viking establishments of this period. I have one here, as a matter of fact, though it’s a reproduction.”

  Darren reached under his shirt and pulled out a shiny metal stylized hammer on a weathered leather cord. The cord ran through a loop at the end of the hammer’s handle, so the head of the hammer hung down.

  “How exactly did Northern Michigan University get involved in the project?” Lowen asked, tilting her microphone back to Darren.

  “Well,” Darren said, adjusting his stance in the mud, “once word got out about the excavation here at the hydroelectric plant—I think they wanted to build an extension office or something right here,” he said, gesturing across the water about thirty yards to a long, three story brick building opposite where they stood on the main island. “Workers found a human skull, so they halted work and called the authorities.”

  “They were worried they’d uncovered a crime scene?”

  Darren nodded. “I’d think the same thing if I was digging and found somebody’s head.” He handed his empty water bottle to someone collecting trash and put his mud-caked hands on his hips. “But when the police shut down the excavation with a temporary order to bring in the forensic specialists, they also uncovered what looked like the remains of a sword.” He smiled. “That’s when things got interesting, because the more they excavated, the more objects they uncovered.” He shrugged. “So the state archeological team called in Professor Turgin, and once it was established that the settlement could possibly be Scandinavian in origin, it kind of grew on its own. Researchers from most of the regional universities were invited to join the effort—we even had teams from Norway and Iceland here last month.”

  “So it’s established as fact that the vikings had a settlement here?”

  Darren shrugged, his hands palm up. “Sort of. We have the artifacts, we have the carbon dating, and we have experts from around the world in agreement—and that never happens,” Darren said with a laugh. “Everyone agrees that we have a real viking settlement, or at least burial site in the United States now. But any lingering debate—and there were some who thought this was a First Nations trading post and th
at the artifacts were actually from L’Anse aux Meadows—was put to rest when we found this last week,” he said, gesturing down into the pit.

  “I don’t mean to be critical,” the reporter said peering over the side of the excavation pit, “but it doesn’t look like much, does it?”

  “Well…” Darren looked down into the muddy pit at the soggy remains of a once proud viking longboat. “No.” He laughed. “To the untrained eye I guess it looks like a rotten pile of logs and mud. But that pile of mud caked timbers will force us to rewrite early American history,” Darren said with a wide smile. “What you’re looking at is a partially buried viking longboat. In Michigan. Think about that for a second. Imagine the bravery—the sheer grit it took to not only sail that,” he said, pointing, “across the open Atlantic, but to navigate the treacherous waters around the Great Lakes.”

  “Is there a clear path from the coast—?” asked Lowen

  Darren shook his head. “No. But, you can sail the St. Lawrence from Newfoundland all the way to Lake Ontario, I guess. A thousand years ago, you’d have to lift your boat out of the water and carry it miles at a time to hopscotch along the little rivers and streams that connect the Great Lakes. It would have been an epic ordeal, but possible. Especially for people who are used to sailing in such shallow draft vessels like these longboats. They might have even been able to take it apart and reassemble it in different areas…”

  Darren shook his head, gazing at the partially unearthed skeleton of the longboat. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? We’ve taken samples of the wood and confirmed that this boat is made from a tree that grew in Norway. Using carbon dating and examining the growth rings visible in the wood under a microscope, we’ve already confirmed that the tree was cut down a bit over a thousand years ago—right in the middle of the late viking age.”

  “You certainly paint a vivid picture, Darren. It’s no wonder the local population is excited,” the reporter gushed as the camera man panned back from the buried ship and the people crawling over it, up to Darren standing on the river bank with a wide smile on his muddy face.