ISS (6 page)

Her voice was soft when she answered, “I don’t know but I know I want to try,” she said.

“Have you ever saved the world before?” he said.

“Very funny,” she said giggling.

They lay in silence and soon he heard the steady even sound of her breathing and it lulled him into a deep sleep.

When Jack woke he felt heat on his back. He thought it was the sunlight coming through the window but when he turned over he realized it was coming from Sara. Her tee shirt was soaked through with perspiration and her breathing was shallow and laboured, she looked deathly pale in the morning light. He tried to wake her and panicked when she would not rouse. Her skin was hot when he touched her face, he was convinced she was dying and he panicked. He checked the time it was twelve minutes before the ISS would be online again. He ran up the stairs and threw open the skylight jamming the whip antenna up through the opening.

“Jack to ISS Jack to ISS”, he said repeating it over and over.

“What is it Jack what’s wrong?” It was Wendy Randall, the ISS Commander.

“It’s Sara she is really sick. She is burning up and breathing funny I think she’s dying,” he shouted.

“Has she been injured? Did something happen to her?” she said.

“She has a gash on her arm where I think a dog bit her,” he said.

“It sounds like she has an infection can you get to a pharmacy?” she said.

“Yes, yes what do I get, what do I do?” he shouted.

“First calm down Jack she will be alright if you do what I tell you but you have to remain calm to help her. Have you got something to write on?”

Sinclair’s Pharmacy was on Porter Road in a small strip mall between Carter’s Country Grocers and Geni’s Hair Palace. He circled past it once and from the outside the Pharmacy looked normal. There was no way to park directly in front of the door but he found a place within twenty five feet which, because he was worried about Sara, was close enough. He was in a near panic, worried that she would die while he was gone. He had not seen any people or dogs lately and that fact along with his concern for Sara, spurred him on.

When he went inside he found the prescription medications thrown on the floor behind the pharmacist’s counter like someone had been searching for something. He knelt down and dug through the mess until he found a bottle of the antibiotic that was on the Commander’s list. He also found a box of single use hypodermic needles to inject the medicine. He searched for bandages and a plastic bottle of alcohol to clean the wounds again and stuffed it all in a plastic bag along with chocolate bars, nuts, and a few bags of Cheetos. He left the Pharmacy and glanced at a white camper van parked across the street. Something about it bothered him. He took a few more steps before it came to him. The driver’s window was open.

He was certain it was closed when he went into the pharmacy.

A creepy chill worked its way up his back when he realized someone in the van was watching him from the shadows. He was speeding back to the car cursing himself for not bringing the gun with him visualizing where inside the car he left it when he heard the van’s engine start. Running the last few steps he pressed the remote to unlock the door. He pulled the door open and dove inside coming up with the gun. He clicked the safety off and spun around in time to see the van turn the corner at the end of the street. He was breathing hard as adrenaline spiked his heart rate. It was then that he remembered the pharmacist with the knife protruding from his chest. This was his pharmacy. He locked the doors and with a shaky hand started the car and putting it into gear an unwelcome realization came to him. Whoever was in the van has seen his car.

If I park in front of the house it will be like leaving a neon sign out front telling the guy where we are.

He needed to figure this out but he was worried about Sara and did not want to waste time looking for a solution. He lived ten blocks from the pharmacy and as he drove he came up with a basic plan. He would drive to the next street after his and look for an empty carport or garage in which to park and then sneak home cutting through neighbouring backyards. He turned the corner onto Arlington Drive and drove up the block opting for the house behind the Jones’ who lived four doors down. He drove into the empty carport; he did not know the people who lived in the house, they had no kids and both worked in the city and commuted to Phoenix every day. He got out and ducked down low with the gun in one hand and the bag from the pharmacy in the other locking the door behind him. He stood by the car and waited and watched but did not see or hear anything. He walked towards the backyard and heard a car engine. He could not see it or tell from which direction it was coming. It sounded close. He gave up any attempt at concealment and ran flat-out back to his house collapsing against the front door after slamming it shut and locking it.

The house reverberated as he ran down to where she lay on his bed. She did not stir when he entered the room and for a heart stopping moment he thought she was dead. He felt the surge of grief overtake him and then a sudden blast of relief when he detected the low raspy intake of breath. He watched, with tears in his eyes, her chest rise and fall and he let out a shaky sob. He sat beside her and gently took her arm in his hands, he could feel that she was still burning up, and he gave her the shot exactly as the Commander instructed him. She did not react at all when he poked her with the needle.

Upstairs he found a clean wash cloth and wetting it came down and sat beside her on the bed patting her forehead with the cool cloth. He was so afraid of losing her that his hands shook as he washed her arms and neck sick with fear and a pervasive sense of grief. He was worried about the white van and he got up and locked his bedroom door then lay down beside her holding the gun on his chest. He closed his eyes and listened to her breathing trying to will her to wellness with his mind. When he opened his eyes again the room was dark and Sara was gone.

And so was the gun.

Mission specialist Mike Peters was running the computer simulation again but he was frustrated because it was impossible to be accurate; the problem was they did not have performance data for the commercial spacecraft. Fully half of what he planned was based on guess work about the spacecraft’s performance and the few scant details he’d gleaned from a Science article from five years ago. It did not help matters that the craft was designed specifically for low earth orbit. This made it difficult if not impossible to predict how it would handle at seventeen thousand miles per hour and minimal shielding. He hoped it had proper stabilizers or those kids would be in big trouble.

The ISS crew’s plan was to automate the operation of the spacecraft as much as possible so that, if Sara and Jack somehow managed to get to Nevada and still wanted to try it, they would not have to learn every onboard system. Jack seemed to have some technical skill, he had re-worked the laser used to communicate with them and that showed initiative and some talent, but the downside was he’d never flown anything. If they could walk the kids through the modifications needed, it might be possible to fly it from the ISS. At the very least it was worth a try.

He did not want to put the kids in danger, it was a tough call. The whole world was in a bad situation and without being resupplied they would eventually perish or have to risk returning to earth.

Returning to earth would not be a problem they have the Soyuz escape pod all set to bring them back. The problem was not the ride it was the plague but Jack and Sara were right if they did get a sample they might be able to find a solution. Returning to earth would not be a problem once they’d created an antidote to the virus. The tricky part was having two teenagers fly a massive commercial spacecraft up to the ISS with a sample. If they could figure out a way to do that it could save all their lives.

***

Jack crept up the stairs and stopped before peeking around the corner into the living room. What he saw worried him. Sara was sitting on the couch holding the gun in her lap looking towards the front door. When she noticed him she smiled.

“I heard something,” she said.

“What?” he said.

She shrugged her shoulders and nodded at the front door. He came around the corner and saw that the door was wide open.

“What the heck are you doing?” he said and ran to it and slamming it shut and locking it, “There are wild dogs roaming around out there.”

He heard the squeak of fear in his voice when he spoke and felt ashamed of his reaction.

“I know,” she said grinning,” they drove past in a van.”

Her grin widened in response to the look of distress on his face.

“What were you going to do if someone came in?” he said.

“Well,” she considered, “If I did not like the way they looked I would shoot them,” she said matter-of-factly like shooting people was something she did all the time. He looked at her and wondered if the fever and infection had affected her mind.

“Are you okay?” he said. His question clearly implying that she wasn’t.

Sara got up from the couch and walked over to where he was standing.

“Here,” she said handing him the gun,” I’m way too hungry to shoot anyone right now.”

He opened two cans of beef stew and a can of pork and beans and used the barbeque to heat their meal. Sara ate quickly washing it down with a bottle of water and he was still eating when she began to sing.

“Beans, beans, the musical fruit the more you eat the more you toot.”

He laughed, she was obviously feeling better.

“I need to take another look at your arm and give you another shot,” he said.

“You can get in trouble for practicing medicine without a license ya know,” she said smiling.

“I’ve got my learners permit,” he said in defense of his medical skills.

“That’s only for driving,” she mimicked steering a car.

***

She was still weak the next day from the infection and she dozed off in the warm car on the short drive to the travel agency on Main Street. Jack parked in front of the building but unlike most businesses he discovered that this one was locked. He would need to break in to look for a brochure for the space adventure tour. Sara woke and watched him casting about looking for some way to break into the building. After a few moments she buzzed the car window down and asked him what he was doing. He grinned sheepishly and shrugged, “the door is locked, “he said, “I need to find a way to get in.”

He turned around gesturing to the glass display window with palm trees painted on it and yelped at the sound of a gunshot and the window imploding. He looked up from the ground where he dived and saw her grinning at him. She held the gun out the car window.

“Do you want me to open the door too?”

They discovered that Jericho One Space Adventures Limited was located at a private airport in New Mexico which was closer than Nevada. She calculated that the trip would take three days to complete traveling during daylight hours. Leaving the town and his family behind was hard for Jack though he knew they were dead. For a long time he had believed his dad would come to look for him but after a month he had to admit that he would not be coming back. There was no longer any reason to stay in Eloy and with the mysterious van driving around town there was good reason to get out.

Their next stop was the hardware store for bungee cords, gas cans, and a siphon hose. He spent the next two hours siphoning gas from cars all over town while Sara dozed. He filled all six gas cans and lashed them to the carrier on the roof of the Outback. He was feeling nauseous from the gas fumes by the time he filled the last one. She was awake when he climbed in to drive them home and she looked at his pale face.

“We have enough gasoline to drive to Botswana and back, twice,” she said and laughed.

“I guess I take after my mom in the preparedness department,” he said.

***

Sara watched him as he prepared their evening meal. She saw him glance over at her a few times but he said very little. She liked his serious nature and she was glad that he could laugh at himself but she wished he would talk more. She hated people who talked too much but being with Jack was almost like being alone. She did not know anything about him and when she tried to learn more by talking about school and social stuff he got even quieter.

They never talked about what happened to the world they’d both seen the news coverage, there was little to say. He was definitely a mystery; she’d never met anyone like him before. He was quiet even for a guy and, though she knew he was intelligent, she wondered why a seventeen-year-old still has model rockets in his bedroom. Aside from the Penthouse magazine there were no pictures of girls or rock bands in his bedroom just space stuff. There was something mysterious about him but not in a scary way. He was nice and funny, but quiet and different.

“What kind of music do you like,” she asked.

At her request he’d run a cord in from the generator and plugged it into the stereo in the living room while she looked through his sister’s music collection. She looked over and Jack shrugged his shoulders. He did not listen to music much, never had.

“Do you like music?” she asked.

“Not really,” he said.

“Why not?”

He thought about her question for a while and said, “Are you afraid of heights?”

He already knew she was because she’d mentioned it to him.

“Yes I told you that don’t you remember?” she said.

“Why are you afraid?” he asked.

“I don’t know, I just am okay.”

“It’s the same for me with music, I don’t know why but it doesn’t do much for me, it just doesn’t.” he said.

He could see by her face that his answer was not good enough. He watched her mind working as she dealt with the foreign concept of someone not liking music. This was something that was clearly not feasible in her world.

“Didn’t you dance in music class? They made us dance.”

“No.”

She regarded him sceptically because she knew that everybody had to dance in music class.

“How did you get out of it?”

“I never went.”

“To music class?”

“To school,” he said and turned away.

Sara regarded his back and wondered what that meant. Everyone went to school. It was the law.

Jack got on the radio after dinner and asked Steve what they needed to resupply the space station. He was happy that they were no longer trying to talk him out of it instead he gave him a long detailed list of items. The extensive shopping list meant they would need to travel to Phoenix to acquire some of the requested items. He figured the city would be a good place to collect the virus sample they needed but the prospect of what had to be done to harvest the sample chilled him.

They left the next day and the drive was uneventful but he noticed that Sara became quieter as they neared the city. Normally she talked a lot but approaching the city quietened her. It was where she lost her dad and when he saw her tears in her eyes he knew she was thinking about him. They searched the city for the items requested by Steve, and Jack kept an eye out for a suitable corpse from which to harvest the sample. He had a sealable plastic container and an axe and serrated knife with which to harvest the part needed. He had been shocked when Steve told him they wanted a complete human head from a virus victim. Jack thought about it all the way to Phoenix, he wasn’t sure he could go through with cutting off someone’s head, even if they were dead. It took a long time to find everything on the list and the car was full and sagging under the weight. When they were ready to leave for New Mexico Sara asked him to drive her to the motel where she and her dad were staying when the plague hit.

She wanted to get her clothes. She asked him not to come inside with her when she got her things. He was worried about what she might find but she had tears in her eyes and he let her go by herself. She was crying hard when she came back with her things. While she was occupied inside the motel Jack took the axe and put on a pair of rubber gloves. He’d spotted the bloated carcass of a woman beside the swimming pool when they pulled up. He closed his eyes as he hacked at her neck with the axe because the visuals were just too grizzly and he felt like he was going to vomit. On the third blind swing the axe hit the concrete beneath her and he opened his eyes in time to see the head roll away into the empty swimming pool. His hands were shaking when he climbed down into the pool to get it. When he grabbed the severed head by the hair the mouth opened and a cloud of tiny black insects flew out. It was sickening. He did not mention it to Sara because she was already feeling bad.

At four pm on Saturday November 21, 2023 they set off on their journey to Clayton New Mexico. They were four miles from the Phoenix city limits when Jack pulled to a stop and opened his door and puked his lunch onto the pavement. It was less than ten miles after that they ran out of gas.

“Jesus Jack, you got all that gas but you didn’t fill the tank? “

She was smiling, the look on her face was not serious, and he knew that she was ‘giving him the gears’ but his face turned red anyway.

“I forgot, okay,” he said and she laughed.

He climbed out and went to the back of the car and unstrapped a five gallon jug and poured it into the tank feeling embarrassed as the fuel glub-glubed into the empty tank. He was happy that she was feeling better. It took three jugs to completely fill it. It was late by the time they got going again and his head was aching from gas fumes. That was when he glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed headlights on the road far behind them. He was afraid to tell Sara about the lights because she might insist that they stop and talk to whoever was coming. After finding her sitting with the front door open and the gun on her lap he was concerned that she did not really understand the seriousness of their situation and what kind of danger they might face from people.

“We’d better find a place to sleep I don’t want to drive at night. We are way too visible with our headlights on and I don’t really want to run into anything in the dark,” he said.

She studied the road map unfolded on her lap.

“There is a lake with a campground about five miles from here. There might be cabins and we can get more gas if there are any cars,” she said.

That sounded good to him, he knew the lake, and he wanted to get away from whoever was on the road behind them. They were driving fifty miles an hour when he said, “I know a short cut,” and veered off the road into the open desert shifting the Outback into four-wheel drive on the fly. He was fatigued from a full day and the amount of driving he’d done and it took all his concentration to not kill them as he sped along in the overloaded car. He was relieved when he heard Sara whoop with excitement when they caught a bit of air as they barreled through the sand dunes.

“This is fun,” she shouted.

They came to a rutted track that Jack knew led to the lake and they followed it until they intersected the tree lined gravel road leading to the camp ground on the south shore of Lake George. It was a small cold water lake fed by snowmelt from the petering out Southern end of Casa Grande mountain range. The sign advertised twenty five serviced camp sites for $30 per night with free Wi-Fi; most of the sites were empty. There were a few cars and a tent and one large recreational vehicle with a satellite dish on the roof. It had California plates.