Family Reunion "J" (2 page)

They first noticed the symptoms yesterday. Angelina became incredibly moody. She was happy one minute, then lashing out angrily at her mother the next. She seemed to be ravenous—they were unable to satiate her hunger. “Mommy, I’m hungry,” she’d complained, minutes after eating what should have been enough food to satisfy an adult.

Then the seizure started later that morning. She began to shake like someone suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Her skin was turning gray, almost translucent. When she came out of the seizure, she did not recognize anyone, she did not respond to her own name. She became violent, trying to bite them.

The test results showed an extreme fluctuation in her level of catecholamine, specifically dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. Somehow, the nanites were effectively blocking the neurotransmitter transporters that were supposed to recycle the catecholamine. The effect was that the limbic system went completely haywire. The limbic system controls rage, fear, hunger, and the making of long-term memory.

His baby was becoming a base animal before his eyes, and he didn’t know how to stop it. He heard Eddie’s voice in his head:
“You’ve just saved the world Dr. R, now what are you going to do?”
He shook his head sadly.
I am sorry my friend, I am afraid I have just
killed
the world.

He placed the phone call that he didn’t want to make. The Secretary of Health and Human Resources did not believe him at first. “You must be mistaken. I took the vaccine, and I feel perfectly fine. It must just be a genetic abnormality. I’m not recalling this vaccine because one person has had an adverse reaction to it.” He explained that his daughter was one of the first to receive the vaccine, and that she hadn’t shown any symptoms until yesterday. He proffered that in his estimation she would be getting many more calls before the end of the day.

His wife and Eddie started showing the symptoms an hour later. For some reason, he and his son never did. The event had begun. They did eventually recall the vaccine, but the damage was already done. Millions—no,
billions
—had already received the vaccine.

The empty feeling in her chest was unusual. Normally she would be a bit depressed when Ryan left for a trip somewhere, but this was different somehow. She’d miss his light caress as he lay next to her in bed, but she would survive—she always did. Jay stayed behind because she was uncomfortable around large groups of people, afraid that she would do, or say, something stupid. She didn’t enjoy being like this, she had tried to overcome the anxiety, but in the end it just wasn’t worth all the mental anguish it caused her. So, whenever Ryan went off to visit his family, she remained behind. Better to be thought of as distant than to have that gut-wrenching terror eat at her soul for days on end while she tried to pretend she was enjoying herself.

Like anyone struck with an emotionally draining condition, she had no idea why the feeling came over her, it just did. For the first part of their marriage, Ryan had tried to “break her out of her shell,” but eventually over the years he came to understand how it affected her. He’d faced his own demons and knew sometimes it was better to step away than to bull through. It was that realization that probably saved their relationship. She didn’t like it when he left, but she’d also come to understand him and what he needed as well. He would only be gone for a week. She could survive.

Jay was an only child. Well, she’d become an only child when her little sister died as an infant. Her parents became so protective of her that she grew up isolated from many of the social situations that are common for kids. She was a loner.

Her dad was her best friend growing up. They hung out working on his motorcycles until his juvenile diabetes took his eyesight. Then the doctors became part of her life. Constantly in and out of the hospital as the disease ate away at the life of her best friend. Her aversion to doctors, needles, and anything to do with the medical field was understandable. She’d only acquiesced three times in her life. Once to give her dad a kidney and twice more for the birth of her children. Other than that, doctors could go screw themselves.

Packing for her trip to Martinsburg was a welcome distraction as she was having a hard time getting past Ryan’s absence.
God this house seems empty without him here. Damn, why am I feeling this way?
She shook off the feeling and went into the bathroom. Jay turned on the blow-dryer and began drying her long, straight, blond hair. She had to touch it up more often now that she was coming up on the big five-oh.
How did this happen? How did I get this old?
She smiled to herself thinking of what Ryan would say: “It beats the alternative!”

She returned to the bedroom and continued packing. What should she take? It would only be an overnight, so there was no need for anything fancy. She retrieved a nice sweater and a pair of black jeans that flattered her long legs and still-shapely bottom. She was five foot nine, and worked hard to fight off the effects of Father Time. She would not grow old without a fight! The hour-long workouts that she and her son Mark went through daily were tough, but it was cool that he liked spending the time with her and the payoff was worth it. She might be pushing fifty, but you would never have guessed it by her athletic frame and well-toned muscles. She still turned heads, which she pretended not to notice, but truthfully, it made her day when the young produce guy at the grocery store checked her out.

She had the TV on the news channel just for noise. They were talking about the South African flu again.
Breaking news, it’s always breaking news. Breaking news, I don’t care,
she thought. Jay had become jaded over the years. The news media exaggerated unimportant things and totally disregarded what she considered important. She switched the channel to reruns of
Friends.

Everything packed up, she went back into the bathroom one more time to check her makeup and put in her contacts. She went through the ritual of sliding the clear lenses over her sky-blue eyes, blinking several times to make sure they were good. Now with her vision at one hundred percent, she examined her face a final time. A few wrinkles around her eyes, but nothing she couldn’t live with. She grabbed her purse and headed out the door. Almost as an afterthought, she reversed course and took the pepper spray and stun gun off the desk where Ryan had pointed at them with the stern admonition, “Damn it honey, these aren’t going to do you any good sitting on the desk!”

As she locked the door to the house, her phone chimed. It was a text from Auddy. Her daughter lived in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, which had been an adjustment for both of them. The four hundred miles that separated them felt like a million. They talked just about every day and texted each other all the time. This morning Auddy was complaining about the “damn tourists” making her drive to work a nightmare. Poor kid didn’t stand a chance when it came to cussing out other drivers from the safety of her car; both her mom and dad hadn’t been the best examples. Jay texted “deep breaths” and a smiley face back, and headed for her car.

She started the new Ford Focus that the company provided for her trips to the four corners of West Virginia. It was a basic model that had replaced the basic model she had worn out with her frequent trips to fingerprint prospective employees for several different state agencies and private companies. Power windows and door locks were how the company showed its appreciation for her loyalty and professionalism. Ha! Still hadn’t gotten her one with cruise control. The fat cats at the top of the food chain drove around in stylish SUVs while the peons that did all the work got stuck with these little gas misers.
Oh well, someday we’ll move down to Surfside and live out our days on the beach,
she mused as she pulled away from the house.

The trip to Martinsburg usually took about four hours in good weather and it was a beautiful summer day. It made the trip so much nicer when it wasn’t raining, or worse, snowing. She had taken to listening to audiobooks to pass the time, and was listening to one of Baldacci’s stories on this trip. She enjoyed the way he mixed the thrilling spy stuff with a collection of quirky characters. She was about a half hour out from Martinsburg when she got a text from Ryan: “flight delayed, I will let you know when I arrive in Dallas.” Great, his trip had started badly; poor guy couldn’t catch a break.

Her first stop was the Pro-Print field office. It was just a hole-in-the-wall space they kept to allow customers the option of sending single new employee prospects to be fingerprinted. For the larger groups, Jay would usually go to their site. She had two appointments in the office, then it was off to the Diamond Dust Casino to fingerprint thirty-five new dealers. Anytime a large poker tournament was going to take place, the casino would hire dealers from all over the country, and was required to run background checks on all of them.

Gone were the days of smearing an individual’s fingers with ink and rolling them onto a paper card. It was all done electronically now using a device that would scan the fingerprints and store the digital information on her computer. It was still an art form to get a good print though, and there were always those tough cases. The older a person was, the more worn down their fingerprints became, especially if that person worked with their hands. Then there were the amputees and those with disfiguring scars. Jay rose through the ranks and started years ago when the technology was in its infancy and she knew all the tricks to getting viable prints.

As usually happened, one of her appointments was a no-show. Jay had waited thirty minutes past the set time, but she had the casino scheduled for four-thirty and couldn’t wait any longer. She packed up her gear and headed for the casino, which was about another forty-five minutes east. She swung in at the golden arches to get a quick fix to last her until she could get some real food. It was a guilty pleasure she allowed herself on these road trips. She normally ate healthy and her workout guru told her not to think of these burger stops as “cheating” but “treating.”

Huh, the line of cars was long for this time of day. She glanced inside the restaurant, but the lines in there were long as well. Oh well, she had a few minutes leeway. Ten minutes later only two cars had ordered. She would leave but another couple of cars had come in after her and blocked her in. She sat there getting more irritated by the minute.
Damn it! If I’m late that old crone who runs HR at the casino will be calling Dick, and then I’ll have to hear about it for a week.
She decided to cut Deloris off at the pass and call Dick, her boss, and let him know about the no-show.

She got through to him on his cell after trying the office to no avail. “Hey, I got stood up by my two o’clock, which has put me behind schedule. I told Angie to call the casino and tell them I would be late.”

Dick’s gravelly voice sounded strangely tight. “I have half a mind to have you head back to Charleston now.”

“Seriously Dick, it’s not that big of a deal. I’ll probably only be ten minutes late,” Jay said, frustrated at his being a jerk.

“It’s not that, there are some strange things going on…” His voice trailed off.

Dick was an ex-state trooper and several of the company’s background investigators were moonlighting troopers. He heard all the local law enforcement rumors, and what he heard today made him extremely nervous.

“Look, it’s probably nothing, and besides, you’re better off staying put than trying to travel tonight. Get the prints from the casino, then hunker down there. Don’t worry about the additional cost of staying at the casino hotel, I’ll cover it.”

The conversation had Jay confused and wondering if Dick had been drinking. “Dick, what the hell is going on?”

“Look, I can’t talk right now,” he said. “Call me when you get to the casino and I’ll have a better idea if this is just BS or if you need to be concerned.” She was about to ask him what she had to be concerned about when he disconnected the call. “Butthead” she said, tossing her phone onto the passenger seat. The line still hadn’t moved. She blasted the horn, then signaled the car behind her that she wanted to get out of line. He could back up a little and it would probably be enough room for her to get out. He shook his head and held up his hands, acting like he didn’t know what she was saying.