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The Chaos Function Page 5


  “You understand what that means, don’t you?” Helen said. “That the disease turns up everywhere at about the same time?”

  “It means it could be deliberate.”

  Helen nodded. “Otherwise we have patient zero on a world tour while exhibiting symptoms of a serious illness, infecting people as he goes. Not impossible, I suppose, but it doesn’t feel right. Beyond that, the pattern of the outbreaks looks strategic.”

  “Jesus Christ. I haven’t seen anything about this. How could I miss it?”

  “Up to now, you’d have had to dig to see it, to connect the dots.”

  “And The Beat has been digging.” Olivia felt left out, which was dumb. But she felt it. Left out of the latest disaster. Abandoned. Except this time it sounded like the whole world was the hot zone. The Disaster was coming to her. No need to pack.

  Helen said, “Last week I started getting reports from CJs. Reports of people falling ill, disappearing from their homes. Distraught family members. Local law enforcement sealing apartments, houses. Crazy stuff.”

  “Reliable reports?” Olivia didn’t trust so-called citizen journalists—a term that could be defined as anyone with a phone. They liked to see their names acknowledged on legitimate news blitzers, and were cool with not getting paid. Basically, amateurs with a jones for attention, or crusaders incapable of, or uninterested in, analyzing context. They made it harder to earn a living. Why pay for textured content when shallow info-bursts drew just as many eyeballs?

  “These were independent reports,” Helen said, “coming in from Paris, Warsaw, Mumbai, the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Even right here in London. Taken individually, each local case is a minor mystery. But when you see it happening all over the place, it reveals a disturbing pattern.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “Privately, I put the word out. I told reporters specifically what to look for. And guess what?”

  “You got more mystery stories for the pattern. Helen, the World Health Organization must be seeing these patterns, too.”

  “I have no doubt of it.”

  “Then why hasn’t an alert been issued? Why isn’t the public being told?”

  “Let me tell you about Perth. I think this answers your question. In Perth, they did ring vaccinations. Someone gets sick, and they stop the airborne spread by vaccinating everybody in a ring around the infection point, like digging a trench, a firebreak, to stop a forest fire.”

  “I know what ring vaccinations are.”

  “Good. But that’s not the scary part.”

  “Then what is?”

  “Perth was one of the earliest reports. But no one’s doing ring vaccinations in any of the other locations. If there’s something to vaccinate against, why wouldn’t they be doing it everywhere?”

  Cold fear rippled through Olivia. “Because the vaccine doesn’t work.”

  “That’s what I think. Guess what the Australian minister of health has to say about ring vaccinations. Not that I’ve actually talked to the minister. But her office responded. Eventually.”

  “Ah . . . they’ve never heard of any such thing?”

  “Correct.”

  “There’s still got to be a public health alert.”

  “It’s coming, believe me. But what if they don’t know what to say? What if they’ve been caught completely flat-footed and don’t want to cause a panic?”

  Olivia wanted to be skeptical. “What’s the contagion?” She knew what they had used the ring vaccination strategy for back in the seventies, but she couldn’t let her mind go there. Not yet.

  “I don’t know,” Helen said.

  “I want to work this.”

  “I thought you were taking yourself off assignment for a couple of months.”

  “I want to work.”

  “Give me the angle,” Helen said.

  Olivia thought for a moment. “In Aleppo, I can find out if there’s anything to the rumors of a hot biological. But I have to be on the ground where I can get face time with my network.”

  “You have money?”

  “I still owe you a story for the last advance, remember?”

  “Then you are officially back on assignment.”

  “Thanks, Helen. I’ll leave tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Brian came through the door. “Well, that was fun.”

  “You didn’t call,” Olivia said from the bedroom, where she was packing.

  “I was with Ryleigh practically the whole time.”  The refrigerator door opened, bottles rattling. “Then I needed some time to process.”

  “And how’d that go?”

  Brian stumped down the hall and stood in the doorway, propped on his crutches, a can of IPA in his right hand. Olivia turned away from the bed where her bag lay open, half packed.

  “Come on,” Brian said. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m lying or something. She wouldn’t stop trying to talk me out of it. I didn’t want to be an asshole—I mean more of an asshole—so I listened. But I don’t think dragging it out helped, either.”

  “Bri.”

  “She wanted to know how I could be so terrible. How I could betray her. And at first I didn’t have an answer. The truth is, I am betraying her. All right, ‘betray’ is too strong. We weren’t married, or even engaged. But she—”

  “Brian.”

  He leaned sideways, looking past her. “Hey, what’s with the bag? Are you packing?”

  “Now listen. Don’t get nuts. I’m heading back to Syria.”

  He stared at her. “You’re not really.”

  “I am.”

  “I can’t believe this. Why? Because of Ryleigh?”

  She told him. He listened. His expression changed like rapid phases of the moon. From disbelief, to confusion, to sharp interest, to full-moon worry.  There was no anger phase. He swung through the doorway and sat on the bed beside her, propping his crutches against the wall. It was a small room, barely space for the bed, a dresser, and two unhappy people. Brian held her hand.

  “What’s the plan, exactly?” he said.

  “I fly out tomorrow. I’ll have to go to Turkey first, and there might be trouble at the border. God knows there usually is.”

  “I guess I can’t talk you out of it.”

  “Bri, you know this isn’t about you. About us, I mean.”

  “Yeah.” He tilted the IPA to his lips. “That doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea. You said you were going to listen to me the next time I said something wasn’t a good idea, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  And like that, she didn’t want to go. She would go, but she didn’t want to. When she’d closed the chat bubble with Helen, she had been filled with nervous, anticipatory energy—the same feeling she always got before an assignment. But she had known, of course, that there was also an element of escape. She reached for the IPA, he handed it to her, and she took a couple of swallows.

  “So, Ryleigh was pissed?” she said.

  “She was not happy.”

  “Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was lunch?”

  “Oh, just really, really great. Can I have my beer back?”

  “No.” She put the can on the floor, shoved her half-packed bag off the bed, pushed Brian back, and straddled him. Nose to nose, looking into his eyes, she said, “I don’t want to go. Isn’t that weird? I always want to go.”

  “You’re not going?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She kissed him, his living breath in her mouth.

  In the morning, the world changed, but not in a good way.

  Six

  Her flight didn’t leave until later in the afternoon, so while Brian was in the shower, Olivia ran out to grab a coffee and some breakfast treats. Morning commuter traffic on California Avenue was heavy. She stood waiting for the WALK light across from Hotwire Espresso, her thoughts tracking over the various difficulties
she was likely to encounter at the Turkish border with Syria. Being massively jet-lagged wouldn’t help, but at least the war was over. The coalition was friendly toward journalists, even if the remnant of Assad’s power structure wasn’t. It was amazing Bashar al-Assad had remained president since 2000. Or maybe not so amazing. His father held power for nearly thirty years. Tyrants tended to assure their own longevity.

  The light changed and Olivia started to cross. A man in an unbuttoned shirt, black T, and sunglasses came out of Hotwire, holding two lidded disposable cups.

  It was the man who had followed her in Aleppo—Crazy Hair. Except now his hair was cut short and neat. Olivia stopped in the middle of the street. The man didn’t seem to notice her. He turned and walked down the sidewalk.

  She followed him.

  At the next block he stopped, waiting for the light. Olivia caught up. It was just the two of them. Olivia’s heart raced. “Hey,” she said.

  The man turned—and it wasn’t him. Just some guy who looked like him, a guy with a similar body type and cheekbones, two Olivias reflected in the silver lenses of his sunglasses.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Nothing. I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

  He smiled. “No problem.”

  Olivia walked back to Hotwire. The encounter disturbed her. She was still jumpy about what had happened when she’d stayed the night in the Baron Hotel. Jumpy enough to react strongly to a guy who, really, only somewhat resembled the man who had followed her and had stood across the street smoking—the man who had, she was sure, been standing outside her room in the middle of the night.

  The line moved, and Olivia bought a double espresso, muddy. Living in the Middle East for so many months, she had acquired a taste for very strong, unadulterated java. She also grabbed some blueberry scones, one for her and one for Brian. As she turned from the counter, her phone began vibrating in her pocket. The woman behind her was staring at her own phone when a red holo-projected NewZalert exclamation mark jumped out of it and jiggled as if attached to a tiny spring. Everyone who wasn’t already holding a phone reached for theirs, including Olivia. She finger-flicked the exclamation mark and the announcement of an emergency address by the president flashed up.

  Olivia ran back to the apartment.

  Brian stood in his boxer shorts, holding a cup of coffee. He looked both bleary and alarmed. His tablet lay on the back of the sofa, projecting a fifty-inch screen.

  “Are you seeing this?” he said.

  On the screen, the president of the United States spoke from the Oval Office. Paula Crawford looked serious as a heart attack as she read from a prepared text.

  “. . . all necessary measures to ensure public safety.  The variola virus is highly contagious. Travel restrictions will remain in place so long as it is deemed prudent, until the virus is brought under control. For now, the CDC is coordinating with the World Health Organization. And I repeat: There is no need for panic at this time. We are doing what Americans have always done in the face of adversity.  We are working the problem. For now, every citizen has a part to play. If you or someone you know is experiencing any of the following symptoms, I urge you to contact your healthcare provider immediately: fever, headache, severe back pain, vomiting. Especially if you notice the appearance of flat red spots on your face, hands, and forearms. If you do not have a healthcare provider, or if your healthcare provider is not available, a national toll-free number has been created to receive your report.”

  The number flashed under Crawford’s face, which made her look like she was pitching a time-share in Belize.

  “My fellow Americans,” she continued, “do not hesitate. At this stage, we are dealing with a containable emergency. But if we are not vigilant, if we are not resolute, we as a nation together, and as members of the world community, may face the most serious consequences. Now I will turn you over to the surgeon general, who will amplify my remarks. Good morning, and God bless the United States of America.”

  The feed switched to the surgeon general, who restated what the president had just said, adding a further layer of urgency.

  Olivia said, “Did she say variola?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Holy shit. Variola is the smallpox virus.”

  “I know. But they didn’t say smallpox. They definitely didn’t use that word.”

  “No.” Olivia was thinking about Helen Fischer. Contagion around the world. People falling ill and disappearing, their homes sealed by authorities. (And what would happen to anyone who dialed the number still flashing on the projection screen? Olivia wondered.) Helen herself not put together, sick, red-eyed.

  “Didn’t the WHO eradicate the virus back in the seventies or eighties?” Brian asked.

  “Yes. The last known case was in 1977. If people were dying of smallpox today, we would know. You can’t hide something like that. The presentation is too aggressive.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Google it.”

  Brian already had his phone out, swiping with his thumb. He stopped, holding the screen up. “Oh, my God.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wait. Jesus. Listen to this. Smallpox killed over three hundred million people in the twentieth century.  Three. Hundred. Million. How could they keep this under wraps?”

  “They couldn’t.”

  “‘Eradicated’ means all the virus was destroyed, right? I don’t get this.”

  “The Russians and Americans kept some,” Olivia said. “There was a big debate over that. I read a whole book about it. But it was supposed to be this tiny amount, tightly controlled. Later on, the Russians began secretly replicating variola, creating vaccine-resistant strains. They had tons of it. Of course, the book was written by an American. Probably the US has tons of it, too. Why not? Nukes aren’t enough. We need disease, too. What the hell, throw in pestilence. Weaponize insects and rats.”

  “Anyway, sounds like you’re not going to Turkey. Not with the travel ban in place.”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  Brian said, “Nobody would do this.”

  There was real pain in Brian’s eyes. Pain and fear. He’d handed out water in Aleppo after the hot war ended. He’d seen starving children, corpses, people whose bodies had been mutilated by barrel bombs, bullets, hellfire. But he probably didn’t fully believe in the capital D that was the world Disaster that never stopped, that was always right here, under the surface, even in places like Seattle, while it was in your face in places like Aleppo. Seeing it dawn in Brian’s eyes made Olivia ache. Gently, she said, “There are, Brian. There are people who would.”

  “You think the Russians would actually attack with this stuff?” He looked like he really wanted her to tell him. “Why would they do that? We’re not at war with Russia.”

  “It doesn’t have to be the Russians. A lot of stuff could have gone missing after the Soviet Union collapsed. It could be out there. It’s plausible. Assad is Russia’s man, right?”

  “This is unbelievable.” He looked ill.

  “Maybe it’s not variola major. I think there are lesser kinds.” Even as she said it, Olivia was calling bullshit on herself. If this was a weaponized version of variola, it wouldn’t be less virulent. If anything, it would be worse , more easily transmitted, more thoroughly deadly.

  “Three hundred million.”

  “Bri.”

  “This could get so bad.”  The Disaster had just landed on Brian’s head, right here in West Seattle, like Dorothy’s house dropped out of a tornado spun up a world away.

  Olivia touched his arm. “Let’s take a breath. We don’t know what’s going on yet.”

  “Right, okay. I’m going to call my parents.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Liv? You should call your mother, too.”

  “Stepmother. She doesn’t need to hear from me.”

  Brian turned his anti-bullshit gaze on her. “You’re always saying stuff like that.”

  “No, I’m not.
Stuff like what?”

  “Like she doesn’t need to hear from you. Or you don’t get along. Or it doesn’t make any difference because you were never that close. Stuff like that.”

  “Brian, come on.”

  “I’m just saying, you know, if you’re ever going to patch it up, now’s a good time.”

  Olivia’s stepmother had been born in Jaipur, and Rohana firmly inhabited her culture. During Olivia’s teen years, Rohana wore saris and shopped every week at The Souk, a tiny shop in Pike Place Market that specialized in herbs and spices from her home country. She filled the cupboard with cumin seed, garam masala, and cardamom pods, among dozens of others—more than she would ever need, in Olivia’s opinion. And she had redecorated the house. Slipcovers in burnt orange, ivory, and green. Knotted rugs, block-printed tablecloths, framed silks. Siddhartha in the dining room, and sandalwood vapors drifting from brass incense burners.

  As a teenager, Olivia had found it off-putting. But maybe she had needed to find it off-putting. Otherwise, Rohana might have legitimately occupied the space left by Olivia’s real mother. Give her a chance, her dad used to say. She loves you. Yeah, well . . .

  “Okay. I’ll call.”

  Brian rolled his eyes. “Don’t act like it’s me making you do it.”

  “It is you making me do it.”

  “Then don’t call. Whatever.”

  He left the room with his phone in his hand.

  Olivia felt like somebody was trying to force her to sit down when all she wanted to do was stand up and run as far away from the chair as she could get. Brian started talking in the next room, and Olivia picked up her phone.

  It took a while to reach Rohana, who had moved back to India a couple of years ago to be near her family. Her other family. She now lived with her sister, Amala, in a suburb of Jaipur. The move had hurt, even after Olivia admitted to herself that she had abandoned her stepmother first, by keeping her at arm’s length no matter how hard she’d tried to be present for Olivia.