The Leaves in Winter (58 page)

“What about it?” asked Faye.

Janis reached forward and had Faye help her to her feet. She stood holding on to Faye. “I don’t think my synthesis of 2GenGEN will take effect in her – not if she catches it from me. Promise me….if you duplicate it in the lab…you’ll give it to her again. Otherwise, she might be the only survivor without extended life.”

Faye tried to process the news but didn’t have time. “I promise…but right now, we need to get out of here. I have to get these samples to Rebecca.”

Janis took a deep steadying breath then stepped towards the exit.

Back onto the concourse they hurried. They found Rebecca and Alyssa waiting across the way in a sundry shop. Faye wasted no time transferring the shoulder bag back to Rebecca.

“These samples are critical,” stressed Faye. “Take good care of them.”

“I will,” answered Rebecca.

Faye whispered, “I put the RIDIS scanner in there too. I don’t want it found on me. When you can, return it to Colin. Now get to your gate. Good luck.”

Rebecca gave a nod then turned to offer Janis a brief yet heartfelt smile.

Janis caught her eye and mouthed a thank you before Rebecca strode off.

Faye and Alyssa flanked Janis and led her from the shop. As the three of them passed a coffee shop, Janis halted, distracted by a TV mounted up and away. The sound could not be heard but the images told all. Body bags were being loaded into the back of a flatbed truck somewhere in
India
. The ordered rows of victims lined the truck as far back as one could see.

Janis whispered to no one, “…So many people!”

Faye glanced up but couldn’t hold the same gaze that held Janis in place. “Come on, let’s go…” She pulled gently on Janis’ arm.

Janis turned, sensing Faye’s intention. “I’m not leaving,”

Faye didn’t want an argument. “We have the sample now. You’ve been here all day. You’ve done enough.”

Janis looked around at the crisscrossing movement of people headed for their destinations. “Where else should I be?”

“There are people in other places. The Project is looking for you here. We can go to a shopping mall, anyplace you want. I’d rather not stay here.”

Janis looked down the concourse at the many gates. “But these people are going all over the world. It only takes one of them to spread it to another city.”

Faye heaved away a tortured frustration. “If they come for you, you won’t be able to spread it anywhere.”

Janis held steady. “Then I’ll do it as long as I can. It’ll work out; remember, everything comes so easily to me…” She walked on noting the sunlight low in the west. To no one in particular she whispered, “Come to think of it…next week is the first day of Spring…”

Faye and Alyssa hurried after her, flanking her once again. There was no use arguing with Janis. As Colin had said, it was her time; she was going to do with it what she wanted.

Over the next half hour, the three of them strolled into Concourse C and then B. Alyssa held her mother’s hand and Faye supported Janis when she felt dazed and weak. The vertigo episodes came more often as time passed. Faye wondered how long Janis would be able to continue.

It was a question she never had answered.

At the far end of Concourse C, Faye was the one to see them first. Suited men accompanied by airport security and paramedics were racing along the wide hallway in electric vehicles. Amber lights spun above the carts in warning. Insistent beeping cleared a path through the pedestrian traffic.

The suited men took the three of them into custody as if it were a medical emergency. Which it was.

The Project agents didn’t identify themselves. They didn’t have to.

Alyssa sat next to Janis on the cart. They held hands the whole way.

Riding back through the concourses, Janis watched the curious faces of strangers as they stared at her and watched her pass by. There were so many faces, some of them interested, some annoyed. Most were oblivious to her passage.

Everyone had places to go, lives to live.

Janis tried to make eye contact with as many as she could.

She and they had so much in common.

Most of them, like her, would soon be ghosts.

Later that evening, in a television studio high above the streets of
New York
, a news broadcaster stared into the camera’s eye and read what was written for him on the moving teleprompter.

“…
earlier today there was a brief scare at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta after an anonymous caller dialed 911 to report a plague-infected woman walking airport concourses. First responders arrived at the scene soon after and took two women and a teenager into protective custody for medical quarantine until tests could be conducted.

The identities of the trio have not been released but only minutes ago preliminary reports were issued from a government lab indicating there is no cause for alarm. I repeat; no cause for alarm. No traces of contagious plague have been found either in the woman or her two companions.

A government spokesperson repeated his estimation from earlier today that this incident was nothing but a disturbing hoax. He added it would be a shame if the irresponsible actions of one person should disrupt the lives of so many
.

He reiterated:

…There is no need to panic
.”

2050

The leaf is jealous of the tree

  
whose life extends beyond the cycle of seasons.

In turn the tree is jealous of the forest

  
whose life extends beyond that of a single tree.

But it’s the forest that’s jealous of the ephemeral leaf

  
whose life never need buttress

  
against the sting of the Age of endless winter.

For some the way will be made straight.

For most there’s no escape from fate.

Some dare not see the forest for the trees.

  
Some would rather burn than freeze.

The coming storm shows no compassion.

What once was green soon turns ashen.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

But even more,

She abhors the unnatural.

What have we become?

How long do we have?
                                                           

                                                         
Who will ever know

                                                      
if all of us go?

The 21st Century as Thriller
Novel

Reprinted from M.C. Miller’s blog,
Prefetching Self
.

One word sums up both the promise and predicament of humanity in the 21st century – that word is
sustainability
. What started as a buzzword for the enlightened sourcing and handling of food ingredients is rapidly expanding to become the critical barometer of overall survival regarding everything from food to fuel, pollution to population, animal and ocean habitat to entitlement cultures depending on debt-based banking systems for financial stability.

As farm soils erode, ocean life plummets, fresh water grows scarce, energy demands skyrocket, and the tides of restless, burgeoning populations seek equity in a global standard of living, a creeping sense of unsustainability haunts the future.

The prospect that advancing science will rescue us with wondrous new technologies yet undreamt is tempting but illusory. Most projections of current trends foresee a convergence of a perfect storm by mid-century. For a world that hasn’t been able or willing to even find and implement a suitable replacement for the internal combustion engine based on fossil fuels – after 150 years, chances are science alone will not save us in time.

It’s never been just about the science. The worn-out cry, “
If we could put a man of the moon, then why can’t we…
{fill in the blank}” has long since been repudiated. The moon shot was a technical problem. Humanity’s issues back on Earth are so much more complicated by social, political, religious, and ideological morasses.

Before the Titanic struck the iceberg, social conventions and civility prevailed. After the strike, denial and distress by necessity quickly switched to expedient actions aimed at certain survival. Left with only so many options at a time of crisis, it’s all too easy for the veil of civil morality and accepted convention to give way during the icy scramble on tilting decks.

It makes one wonder, when the time draw nears for humanity’s own perfect storm, what will the captains of industry, power, and political position decide to do? Surely in their elite certainty of knowing better than the rest of us, they will not hesitate to act. Given a choice between the certain collapse of civilization headed for extinction…or a severe but structured social reorganization that produces a manageable and properly governed social order…what will they choose?

After a quick Internet browse, one can find real world quotes like the following.

They’re not from a doomsday thriller novel.

They only sound like it.