Altered Genes: Genesis (23 page)

A
side from a scraggly brown
dog that pawed through the garbage that had spilled from an overturned trash can, there were no other signs of life on the main street of the tiny town.

Mei knew there were people around, they just weren’t making their presence known. This was their last stop before the border. Canada was ten miles away.

“Slow down,” she said to Lucia as they passed in front of a tiny cedar-shingled building. The green sign in front looked as if someone had taken an upside down checkmark and jammed it into the earth. The word restaurant was spelled out in ancient red neon.

She decided it was worth a chance. They needed to barter for food. “Pull in there.” She pointed to the parking lot at the side of the building.

Lucia steered the van into the small space and the skittish dog turned suddenly at the sound. It eyed them warily for a few seconds and then went back to its business, pawing through the garbage for scraps of food.

They climbed out of the van as Gong steered the car into the parking lot. After the outburst from the day before, she was traveling with Lucia and everyone else was in the car. It gave her no small amount of pleasure to hear Simmons complain about Emma’s non-stop chatter.

“Maybe it’s open,” she said to Simmons as he walked over to the van. She wasn’t hopeful but even if it was closed, they’d all get a quick stretch and a dose of fresh air.

“Masks, everyone,” she shouted.

To her surprise, the door was unlocked. She opened it cautiously and stepped inside. The restaurant was dimly lit and empty. The tables were covered with red tablecloths and cutlery neatly wrapped in paper napkins. Empty Chianti wine bottles with drip candles sat carefully placed in the center of each one. The walls were covered with kitschy knick-knacks and black and white photos from the fifties. Most showed a scene of some kind that included an older man with white tousled hair and a bushy mustache of the same color.

“We’re closed,” a tired voice yelled from the kitchen.

“Okay, thank you,” Mei answered. She searched for the man who had spoken. He was nowhere to be seen. “Sorry to bother you.” She sighed and dropped her head as she turned to leave.

It had been worth a try.

“Come on guys,” she said to the rest of them.

“Hold on just a minute,” the voice called out. She turned and saw its owner peering through the small square window on the door that separated the kitchen from the dining area. A second later, he pushed it open and limped into the room.

She did a double-take and craned her head around to look at the photographs on the wall.
It was the same man, but how could that be? the photos must have been nearly seventy-years old.

He saw her stare and grinned. “That’s my father. I’ve been told we look the same, but I’m much more handsome, don’t you think?” He winked at her and hobbled forward using his cane for support. “What can I do for you?”

“We just wanted to see if you were open.”

He shook his head. “Not really, there isn’t much food left.”

Using his free hand, he dragged a chair out from beneath a nearby table and lowered himself into it with an exhausted grunt. “Excuse me for sitting, I had a hip replacement three months ago. It aches like a son-of-a-gun.”

He used his cane to push back another chair from the table and beckoned to Mei. “If you aren’t in a hurry, please sit—and the rest of you, too. I haven’t had much company lately.”

The group looked to Mei and she nodded.

“I’m Joseph, by the way,” he said with a wave of his hand.

She introduced the others. He cocked an eyebrow as he inspected them one by one. “You’re not from around these parts are you?”

She smiled and shook her head gently. “All over but we’ve just come from the Washington area.”

“How long have you been on the road?”

“Six days…six very long days.”

He ran his thumb and forefinger through his mustache as he studied them. After a moment of deliberation, he turned to Saanvi and Emma. “I know I said I don’t have much food but I might be able to find something. Are you girls hungry?”

Saanvi, as always, said nothing but Emma bobbed her head up and down. He scratched at his chin with his forefinger.

“Hmmm…there’s no meat left, but how about a plate of Penne sugo all'arrabbiata?” He brought his fingers to his mouth, kissed his fingertips and then smacked his lips. “The sauce is delicious—I made it myself.”

Emma laughed at his exaggerated gesture. “I don’t know what
penne abracadabra
is but it sounds wonderful. I’m so hungry right now, I’d eat the crumbs off the floor.” She turned to Saanvi and made a sucking motion with her lips.

Saanvi smiled.

Mei beamed at the sight.
That’s the first positive sign I’ve seen since we rescued her.

“Okay, that’s enough,” she said, scolding Emma lightly.

She turned to the old man. “We’re short on cash but maybe we can trade you for something. Is there anything you need?

His eyes tightened as he squinted at her and then just as quickly relaxed.

“I’m eighty-one years old. I don’t need much. Just some company for dinner would be nice.”

He pushed back his chair and used his cane and the tabletop for support. “I’ll get to it now,” he said as he climbed to his feet.

When she stood, he motioned her to sit back down. “Thanks but I don’t need the help.”

With a lifetime of practice, it didn’t take him long and a short while later they sat around two tables enjoying a home cooked Italian meal.

“I never asked but where are you going?” he looked to Simmons and then Mei. “I don’t imagine this is your final stop.”

“North to Canada,” she answered.

He shook his head. “That’s going to be tough. The border’s closed. Back when this all started, we had quite a few come back into town after they couldn’t make it across. Not so many now, I guess most have given up trying. Don’t know if its true but I heard the Canadians blew the damned bridge up.”

“Is there any other way across?”

“Not unless you’re a Mohawk.”

“Mohawk?”

“Mohawk Indian. There’s a reserve about ten miles up the road. It sits on the St. Lawrence river. Part of it is in the United States and the other part in Canada. They’ve been smuggling things between the two countries for so long it’s almost a tradition.”

“What do they smuggle?” Simmons asked.

“Just about everything. It started back in the days of prohibition, truckloads of whiskey would come down the highway from Montreal and the Indians would arrange to have it moved across the border and then down to the big cities like New York.”

“Do they smuggle people?”

He shook his head. “Not anymore. A month ago they would have—for a price—but they’ve blocked the roads into the reservation.”

Damn it.

She looked at Simmons. He had warned her that crossing the border would be a challenge. “Maybe we can find a boat,” she suggested to him.

“Finding a boat will be easy,” he answered. “Getting across without being shot will be harder.”

Gong nodded in agreement.

Joseph listened as they debated their options and then spoke. “There might be a guy who might be able to help you. He used to come to the restaurant every month or two. Sometimes he’d bring his son. He gave me this.” He showed Mei his cane. It was old and handcrafted. A carved effigy of some type of animal served as a handle.

“His name was Michael Otetiani—sheriff said he was a bigwig on the reserve, ran one of the smuggling rings. I don’t know about that, but he was a nice guy…honest…always said hello, treated the staff well.”

“Would he help us?”

He shrugged. “No idea, you’d have to find him and ask. I haven’t seen him in a very long time. He placed his cane on the table and pushed it towards Mei. “But if you do meet him, show him that.”

“I can’t take your cane, Joseph,” she said and clasped her hands together.

“Don’t be silly.” He pushed it a little closer to her. “It’s just a piece of wood and I have another. If you show it to him, he’ll recognize it and know you talked to me—that I sent you to see him.”

Surprised and humbled by the old man’s generosity, she reluctantly reached across the table and took it.

They finished dinner and helped him clean-up. When he discovered they’d been sleeping in the van and a small tent, he insisted they spend the night in the restaurant.

The floor wouldn’t be more comfortable, but at least they wouldn’t be banging into each other every time they moved.

“And we don’t have to pee outside,” Emma said with a smile.

T
hey said
goodbye to Joseph and left early the next morning. Plumes of oily black smoke billowed into the sky ahead of them and the smell of burning rubber filled the air. Mei felt an electric tension in her stomach. She rubbed her hands on her pants.
They were close.

Lucia slowed as they approached a stack of burning tires that sat in the middle of the road. Just beyond the tires, a massive mound of dirt and gravel covered both lanes of the highway and spilled over into the ditch. Broken down cars that looked as if they’d been snatched from a junkyard were stacked along the top. A small space, wide enough for a man to stand, was left between each car.

A red flag with the silhouette of a native Indian offset against a bright yellow sun fluttered in the early morning breeze. It flew from a pole that had been stabbed through the roof of one of the cars. A handful of armed men looked down from their perch beside it. One of them raised his rifle.

“Stop now!” Mei shouted to Lucia.

The van screeched to a stop in front of the burning tires. They’d been warned by Joseph to be careful. Mei rolled the window down and stuck her hands out to show she wasn’t armed.

It’s now or never…

She opened the door and climbed out. Simmons joined her from the car. They held their hands high in the air and walked around the burning tires. The acrid black smoke clawed at her lungs and she bit back the urge to vomit. They stopped a few feet in front of a rusted car that had tumbled down from the top of the barricade. She held the walking stick in her hand.

“The nation of Akwesasne is closed to outsiders. Turn around and go back the way you came,” a man yelled at them from atop the barricade. He stared and waited for them to leave, his rifle cradled loosely in his arms. He was rugged looking and dressed in hunter’s clothing. A braided pony-tail hung part-way down his back.

“We need to get to Canada,” she yelled back. “We were told Michael Otetiani could help.”

He clenched his rifle tighter and took a step forward. “Who told you that?” he asked in a gruff tone.

“Joseph—I don’t know his last name.” She pointed in the direction they had just come from. “He owns a restaurant in the first little town that way.”

The other men on the barricade roared with laughter. He raised his hand to silence them and spoke to the man closest to him

“Watch them.”

He slung his rifle over his shoulder and walked to the edge of the barricade. As he side-stepped his way down the pile of dirt, his feet slid on the loose material.

He came to a running stop at the bottom and he looked at her. His dark brown eyes were almost black. They narrowed as he studied her and Simmons. “How do you know Joseph?” he asked from the other side of the rusted-out car.

“We came from his restaurant.”

“It’s still open?” He sounded surprised.

She shook her head. “No—closed, but he was kind and cooked for us. He gave me this.” She held the cane up.

His eyes widened at the sight of the wooden walking stick.

A hand-held radio squawked from the top of the barricade and one of the men yelled down to him. “The clinic says come now. Kateri is worsening.”

He gave the cane a look of great deliberation and pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry, we can’t help you. You must go,” he said finally.

Her heart sank as he turned and scrambled back up the pile of dirt. “Are you Michael Otetiani?” she called after him. “I’m a doctor, maybe I can help.”

He was almost at the top when he stopped and turned towards her, a bitter look on his face. “We have doctors, nurses, native healers. No one can help against the plague you people have spread across mother earth.” He took the hand of the man who had yelled out the bad news and let him pull him up the last few steps.

As they turned away, she felt an emptiness in her chest.
It couldn’t be over, not yet.
She swallowed hard and yelled out, “If you help us, we might be able to help you. One of the scientists who is looking for a cure is standing beside me.”

Simmons gawked at her and growled in a low voice, “What the hell…are you out of your mind?”

The two men reappeared. The man who had spoken to her tilted his head towards Simmons.

“Him?”

“Yes—Tell him, Tony.” She angled her body so they couldn’t see her whisper. “Say something…say anything.”

The men on the barricade stood motionless, waiting. Simmons grit his teeth and began to speak. “It’s a strain of the bacteria clostridium difficile,” he said in his booming lecture hall voice. “It’s transmitted through spores in an infected person’s feces. It was genetically engineered and its pathogenicity is amongst the highest ever recorded. Once it’s established, it releases toxins that destroy the lining of the intestine. It’s resistant to all types of antibiotics. There is no cure.”

Her heart sank.
Damn it, Tony, you shouldn’t have said that.

The man’s eyes narrowed. His face was dark with anger. “Then what good are you? Get rid of them,” he commanded.

“Wait,” she yelled in desperation as he turned to leave. “We may have people in our group who are immune. It might be possible to transfer immunity.”

Simmons began to speak. “Mei, we don’t—“

She turned and scowled at him. He stopped.

The man on the barricade glared at her. “Why should I believe you?”

She stepped towards him and spoke firmly, “What do you have to lose? If I’m right, your people will be healed and if I’m wrong—“

“If you are wrong, you won’t have to worry about making it to Canada—or anywhere else.” He turned to the man beside him. “Take them to the clinic.”

T
he truck stopped
in front of a white one-story building. Mei and Simmons were escorted inside. She still held Joseph’s cane in her hand. No one had tried to take it but a few of the men had looked at it oddly. She decided to keep it by her side.

The clinic’s waiting room was a small space large enough to seat ten or fifteen patients. The chairs had been removed and the space converted into a prep room. Medical equipment and supplies were stacked in metal racks that lined two walls.

They were given latex gloves, a gown, and surgical masks by a nurse who pulled them down from a shelf. If the nurse was surprised to see them, she didn’t show it. Mei guessed the men in the truck had radioed ahead.

They had just finished donning their protective gear when the man who had ordered them taken arrived. Like them, he was given clothing to wear and quickly put it on.

“Follow me,” he said when the nurse finished tying his mask. He pulled back a thick plastic sheet that hung from the doorway connecting the lobby to the rest of the clinic. He motioned them through it.

Simmons was in front. He froze when the man opened the make-shift door. She reached forward and squeezed his arm. She knew he’d never been exposed to the bacteria without the security of a containment suit to protect him.
The real world with its death and suffering was different from the lab.

“You’ll be fine.”

He nodded and they walked through the door. Every room had been converted to a sickroom. As best she could tell, they were all full. Moans and cries of pain filled her ears. She flashed back to Bellevue.

It was like this at the end—and then quiet.

Their escort led them into a room. An elderly man sat by the side of a hospital bed holding the hand of a teenage girl. She was unconscious and connected to an intravenous tube. Her face was pale and her breathing labored.

“Grandfather, these people say they can help Kateri.”

The old man looked up. His eyes were hollow and sunken. He wasn’t wearing protective clothing. He rose slowly from his chair. When he reached his feet, the younger man held out an arm to support him. The old man coughed, a deep hacking noise that sounded as if his lungs were being shredded.

He looked at Mei and spoke. “My days are near an end, I am old…but my granddaughter is young—too young to die.”

He coughed again. “I am Michael Otetiani. My grandson says you can help.”

He’s Michael Otetiani?

Her eyes darted from the old man to their escort. She studied him from up close, noticing for the first time that he was younger than she expected.
In his mid-twenties
,
a leader of some type.

“Is this your sister?”

He nodded.

The old man’s eyes brightened when he saw the walking stick in her hand. He motioned for it. She handed it to him and he greeted it like a long lost friend, stroking the golden-brown wood that had been worn smooth with age.

“How is Joseph?”

She blinked in surprise.

“Good. He’s a kind man.”

The old man nodded and ran his gnarled fingers over the carved effigy on the handle.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Tsyoka'wehkowa—the Raven, sometimes a trickster, sometimes a healer. When I was much younger, I was given the walking stick at the tenth-day feast for my grandfather’s funeral. It was a precious gift. I carried it everywhere.”

He paused to catch his breath and she helped him back to his seat.

“One day, many years ago, I ate at Joseph’s restaurant but I had forgotten my wallet. It was different then—my people were not accepted in white society. Joseph could have had me arrested but he didn’t. He accepted my promise to repay him. I gave him the walking stick with my promise to return the favor.”

He handed it back to her. She shook her head. “Please keep it, it’s yours.”

“No,” he said firmly, “It is not. It passed from me to Joseph and now to you. If you give it away, you must give it to someone who has helped you. That is the legend I shared with Joseph.”

“But I didn’t help him” she argued.

The old man smiled. “Perhaps not in any way you know.” He handed her the cane and she reluctantly took it back.

A spasm of coughing racked his body. He brought his hand to his mouth, it came away speckled with blood.

She placed the cane on the floor and knelt beside his chair.

“This isn’t the bacteria, is it? Do you have lung cancer?”

He nodded.

The younger man put his hand on her shoulder. “That’s enough for now. He’s tired and needs to rest.” He helped her up and escorted them out of the room.

He stopped her at the end of the hallway, a dark glint in his eyes. “I don’t know why, but he believes in you. It’s time for you to do whatever it is you need to do to make my sister well again.” He pushed the thick plastic aside and waited for them to leave.

“Don’t make me keep my promise from the barricade.”

L
ucia stood
on the other side of the room with her arms tightly folded across her chest. She frowned and gave Mei a sour look.

“We need to know what your blood type is,” Mei pleaded as the nurse from the front lobby walked in with a needle in her hand.

“You do it. I trust you more than I trust her.”

Oh for God's sakes.
She put her hands on her hips and sighed. “Look, I can do it if you want but the last time I took blood from a patient was about two years ago.” She turned to the nurse. “How many patients have you taken blood from in the last two years?”

The nurse smiled. “I don’t know, around a thousand. No one's died yet.”

Mei looked at Lucia. “Well?”

The Latino woman stormed over to the chair and slammed her butt down into the seat. She rolled her tee-shirt up over the top of her shoulder and clenched her teeth as the nurse warily inserted the needle. When the vacuum tube was filled with blood, the nurse turned to Mei. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with her type.” She left the room.

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?

Lucia scowled and picked at the cotton ball taped to her arm.

Simmons walked towards Mei. He shook his head from side to side. “This is crazy.”

She looked to see that the nurse was out of ear-shot before speaking. “Tony, I had to do something. It was the first thing that came into my mind. You said yourself that Lucia and I might be immune.”