Xombies: Apocalypse Blues (31 page)

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Authors: Walter Greatshell

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“Come on, Ed,” Hector hissed at his stepfather. “You’re drunk. Save the complaints for later.”
“Listen, smart-ass, once we go through that door, there may
be
no later. We don’t know what they’ve got waiting for us in there.”
“It can’t be any worse than what’s waiting for us out here.”
Annoyed by our hesitation, the man in the booth said, “There’s no
danger
if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“What happens if it gets a hole in it?” Mr. Albemarle asked. “Does it all go flat?”
“No, but it won’t have what we call ‘optimal rigidity.’ There are helium cells and heated air to provide backup suspension. A hole would be unlikely anyway—the envelope is an
extremely
robust Vectran composite developed by NASA—but if there was one, it would trigger sensors in the fabric, and we’d be right on it. Step inside, please.”
“Beautiful,” Albemarle grumbled, as we went in. The door thundered shut and rubber valves wheezed tight around the frame.
The man said, “You may experience a little discomfort as the pressure equalizes.”
Warm air came rushing in through vents as if blow-drying us. It pressed on our ears and sinuses, some more than others. Hector and Lemuel winced, but for me it was no worse than being stuffed up from a cold. The breeze slackened, then stopped. We waited for the inner door to open, but it remained sealed.
Albemarle asked, “What now?”
“Now comes the trickiest part.” Electric motors came on, driving a grappling system that ran on tracks in the ceiling. I realized the glass booth was the crane cockpit. Suspended from cables was a metal box, a freight car, and it began slowly descending to the floor. When it touched down, the man said, “Go inside and leave your clothes in the container to be sterilized.”
“What are we gonna wear in the meantime?”
“Nothing, until you go through decon. It’s standard procedure for all newcomers: decontamination, health screening, and civic preparation. Nothing too
complicated
, I assure you.”
Albemarle opened the sliding door. Inside was a chamber containing a large empty bin with a biohazard symbol stenciled on it, then a narrow tunnel to a second chamber at the opposite end. There were cartoon instructions all along the way. “Nothing like a little privacy,” he said. “What’s
she
s’posed to do?”
“I’m all right,” I said. “It’s no big deal.” I had survived so much already it just seemed absurd to quibble about nudity. This was a first for me because I had always been so paranoid about my body.
As long as they knew I was all right with it, no one else had any objections. We went in and stripped off all our soaked clothes, everyone doing their best not to look at anything or even say anything. The door had closed on its own, and we discovered that it didn’t open from the inside.
“Well, we’re locked in,” said Julian, covering his crotch.
Albemarle stepped into the tunnel. Without warning, a torrent of hot spray blasted him from all sides. “It’s all right!” he shouted back. “Come on!”
Single file, we all followed, whooping like baboons at the force and heat of the spray, as well as the strong chemical smell. But it wasn’t exactly unpleasant. In fact, once our bodies adjusted to the pain, it became cathartic ecstasy, scouring away our grief along with whatever hapless microbes we carried. Foam and billowing steam made it hard to move forward without bumping into other slippery bodies, but after a few minutes we stopped troubling over it and just gave in to the stinging peace.
The shower went on for a long time, or maybe just seemed to compared with the half-minute spritzes I’d become accustomed to on the boat. There were several stages in the process, including a final one where we donned dark goggles and were baked with UV light. By that point I was almost serene, though without the noise and lashing spray, it was a little bit awkward to be standing there nude with all the boys and hairy old Mr. Albemarle.
There was a jarring vibration, and we all had to steady ourselves as the whole room rose in the air.
Amid alarmed complaints, Jake said, “Elevator going up.”
It stopped, then began gliding sideways. After a few seconds it shut down and stayed still. We could hear sounds of a heavy door being unlatched and thrown back, but it wasn’t our door.
“Is it safe to come out?” Albemarle bellowed. He tried the door and found it unlocked. Instead of a thirty-foot drop to the floor, there was a room on the other side. “Well, whattaya know,” he said.
It was a dressing room lined with racks of clothing and towels. All the clothes were like hospital scrubs: loose drawstring pants and baggy blouses, with only cloth booties to wear on our feet. Everything was white or off-white. It was very comfortable stuff, and I was especially glad to put it on because I kept catching the guys sneaking tortured looks at me through the mirrors. A couple of them—Lemuel and, of all people, Julian—were having trouble controlling their bodily reactions, and were at great pains to conceal it. I wished I could have told them it was all right but thought that would only make things worse.
When the eight of us were dressed, Cole said, “We look like a damn karate class.”
“Or kendo,” Jake said. “What was that about ‘optimal rigidity’?” He smirked at Lemuel and Julian.
There were four doorways off the changing room: The first opened onto a gleaming-clean institutional bathroom, of which we all availed ourselves; the second was locked; and the third led to a large dormitory with forty or fifty freshly made-up cots, a paradise of crisp cotton sheets and soft pillows. The motherly smell of clean linen actually brought tears to my eyes.
Albemarle interrupted the bliss. “Don’t anybody get any ideas. Nobody hits the sack until I get some answers.”
We dragged ourselves away, checking out the fourth door. It opened onto a sight even more welcome than a bedroom: a banquet hall. Dozens of tables stood folded against the walls, leaving the floor empty except for a single table and eight chairs. There were also eight glasses of orange juice, eight huge cheeseburgers with french fries, eight bowls of vegetable soup, eight bars of Swiss chocolate, and eight plastic binders.
Each binder had a note on it which said,
Welcome, new Citizen of Valhalla, Official Headquarters of MoCo. Our regulations require a 24-hour period of observation and quarantine before you may begin the orientation phase of your citizenship. Enjoy the opportunity to relax and begin familiarizing yourself with the duties and privileges afforded you as a Citizen of Valhalla, MoCo. Thank you!
The binders contained handbooks full of propaganda and corporate jargon.
“Listen to this,” Julian said as we sat down. “‘Company History: Mogul Cooperative was founded over twenty years ago by an international group of visionary business leaders from many different fields, but who shared a single goal: to provide safe haven from worldly cycles of boom and bust. These men’s investment in the future has made possible the comfort and security—perhaps the very existence—that you now enjoy. Since its humble beginnings as a gerontology institute led by Nobel Laureate Dr. Uri Miska, MoCo has become a country unto itself, a borderless nation-state with no single language, culture, or religion, but with an unswerving commitment to long-term prosperity and growth. MoCo employs corporate principles of efficiency to meet the ever-changing demands of today’s world . . . and tomorrow’s.’”
“What crap,” Albemarle said, mouth full.
“What’s gerontology?” asked Cole.
“Aging,” I said. “The science of aging.”
None of us could be bothered to think about it just then—we were too busy digging in.
 
 
“Mr. Albemarle,” I said, as we drowsily contemplated our full bellies. “One thing is bugging me. I was on the bridge when Captain Coombs and the rest of the shore party met the representatives from the base. There was some Air Force colonel there, or at least that’s what he said he was. Lowenthal. He didn’t say anything about Valhalla or this corporate-sounding deal they’ve got going here.”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” replied Albemarle. “There’s definitely been a major regime change around here since the commander got his orders. The old bait and switch. They got the boat, and we get hamburgers.”
Julian asked, “But why keep us on at all? What good are we to them?”
“I think manpower has become the second-most-valuable commodity in the world today,” said Albemarle. “Think about it: You can’t be a ruler without subjects to rule. To keep a show like this running, you need workers, lots of ’em, and we’re in short supply.”
“What’s the first most valuable?” I asked.
“Women,” he said.
As we sat there digesting, we all began to droop. It was so quiet and warm, and it had been a long day—a long month. Almost falling out of my seat at one point, I asked permission to go to bed. Albemarle nodded and made a groggy announcement to the effect that we were all badly in need of rest and should turn in. He himself would stand watch for a few hours, then awaken some of us to take over. I felt terrible for him—he looked half-asleep already—but I was too tired to argue. That cool, cool pillow beckoned. I don’t even remember falling into it.
We had been drugged, of course. It made for a long, peculiar sleep, full of strange aches and proddings, as if someone wouldn’t leave me alone to rest but kept pecking at my face, giving me a headache. At first I fled the intrusive glare of consciousness, then began fighting toward it, painstakingly clawing upward through the dense narcotic membrane like a baby turtle hatching from its buried shell until finally I could feel my body twisting against cloth restraints. I was tied to a wheelchair.
“Hey, shhh,” someone said gently. “Just relax, Louise.”
It was a woman’s voice.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
“
W
ho are you?”I asked plaintively, trying to focus. I had the strange sensation that we were outdoors. “Un
tie
me . . .”
“I’m Dr. Langhorne—Alice. I’m supervising your treatment. The restraints are only so you don’t hurt yourself, shhh. When you’re completely alert, we’ll take them right off.”
Her voice was cool and smart, with a slight rasp from hard use. She was out of my view; all I could see was a colorful blur like a city on a summer night. I knew this couldn’t be, but as my vision sharpened, it only seemed more and more like a city.
“Where are the others? Where am I?”
“You’re in a place we call ‘The Global Village.’”
It all gelled. I really was on a platform overlooking a city, or rather a theme-park replica of a city, a sprawling assemblage of all the world’s great capitals, identified by their dominant icons: the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Coliseum, the Lincoln Memorial, and many more. All the world under one roof. And it
was
a roof, an inflatable dome, in spite of the sparkles and cobalt blue lighting that suggested sky. The buildings, too, were balloons, not solid masonry at all but illuminated tapestries like enormous kites. Amid this elaborate stage setting, I could see real people moving about with the cheerful deliberation of retirees at a swap meet. There were women and little girls among them—only the old and young. Nothing in between. No one like me.
“What is this?” I asked, voice cracking.
“Isn’t it
fabulous
?” There was sarcasm in her tone. “Welcome to the Vegas of the North.”
“Vegas?”
“That’s what it was intended to be: Nunavut International—the world’s biggest casino. Commandeered and delivered here by the happy minions of MoCo.”
“How did all these people survive?”
“They’re friends, family, valued employees, and honored guests of Mogul.”
“What does that mean?”
The doctor leaned down beside me so I could see her. She was a strikingly tall older woman with a pink complexion and a flaxen flattop, an aging Amazon uncowed by time. Around her forehead was a hammered-gold band with a silver bauble.
Her green eyes bored into mine as she said, “Mogul is an old boys’ club, a group of very powerful men who pooled their resources to bring all this here, and they call the shots—that’s all there is to it. We couldn’t exist without them. But most of them don’t feel comfortable in here, rubbing elbows with the commoners, so they delegate from their planes outside. If they want something, we jump, but otherwise we’re on our own. You do what’s expected, and nobody bothers you.”
“But this is incredible. All these
people
. . .” I could see little kids playing jump rope. For a minute, I was too overwhelmed to speak.
“Yes, it looks like a carnival,” said Langhorne. “Some folks think they’ve died and gone to Disneyland. But it isn’t, I can assure you. It’s survival of the fittest around here, and you have to be very careful whose toes you step on. Mogul executives and family members are top of the heap; below that it’s a free-for-all for power and privilege. I should tell you that as a teenage girl, you already have enemies here. You’re a threat.”
“But I can’t get Agent X. I have a problem with my—”

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