dedicated group of NGOs and villagers who’d escaped the plague were rebuilding here, with the help of foreign donations flowing in from around the world. But, as with everything in the jungle, it was a slow and painstaking process.
Like the hospitals in Los Angeles, the old medical clinic had been leveled, by a team sent from the States, and a new temporary one constructed in its place. Stanton parked the Land Rover and headed inside, waving at now familiar faces. Some were members of Fraternidad who’d volunteered to come down and help rebuild. In all there were almost four hundred people living in the village now, and everyone had taken on a role in the reconstruction.
In the pediatric area in back of the clinic, Stanton found Initia tending to the babies orphaned by the outbreak. Most were in hammocks, and a few others were in tiny cribs constructed out of small pieces of wood and thatch.
“
“Hello, Gabe,” she replied.
Stanton quickly checked the babies’ eyes. Even the youngest were now six months, which meant their optic nerves would be fully developed soon, and he was vigilantly watching them for any signs of Thane’s disease.
“Welcome back, Doctor.”
Stanton turned. Ha’ana Manu stood in the entryway, carrying the eight-month-old they had named Rolando, who was screaming in her arms.
“Are you ever going to call me Gabe?”
“You went to medical school for four years to be called Gabe?”
CHEL CROUCHED BENEATH the A-frame of a new structure in the eastern housing group with four other Fraternidad members, preparing to lift another tree trunk upright. Before she could start counting, she heard a whimper.
“Hold on,” she told them. She hurried over to the small bassinet hidden in the shade beneath a nearby cedar tree. Volcy’s daughter, Sama, now almost seven months, lay inside with her eyes wide open and alert.
“Chel, look what I found.”
She turned back to see her mother standing with Gabe.
For weeks, Ha’ana had continued to deny she’d written the prison letters or that she’d ever been a revolutionary. Even now she clung to the story that she and Chel’s father had written the letters together. Still, Chel considered it a victory when she’d convinced Ha’ana to come down to Kiaqix with her for the first time in more than thirty years. Ha’ana claimed she had every intention of returning to America soon and complained about not having TV or a proper stove. But Chel knew her mother would stay as long as she did.
Stanton walked over and kissed Chel. They’d been finding excuses to visit once or twice a week since January, and it hadn’t been long before they started talking about their future. They’d been cleared of wrongdoing by their respective institutions, and had both been invited to keynote at symposiums all over the world and offered faculty positions at various universities.
The fact that they’d gone to Guatemala on their own and found the cure for Thane’s disease had shaken up the CDC; Director Kanuth had resigned his post. Cavanagh was the heir apparent, but rumors circulated that the president intended to offer it to Stanton. He wouldn’t accept, and Chel knew she was a big part of why. She wasn’t leaving here anytime soon, and if they did eventually return to the States, it would be together.
Stanton reached into the bassinet to offer Sama a finger, and the little girl lit up. Chel almost never let her out of her sight. She and Stanton had spent many nights in her wood-and-thatch house, feeding the baby bits of tortilla beside the hearth, until she fell asleep, after which they’d taken full advantage of their privacy.
“Thought you weren’t back till next week,” Chel said. “Is everything okay?”
Stanton pulled the printout from his pocket and gave it to her.
2012 Group Breaks Silence
Saturday, June 22, 2013, 9:52 a.m.
FBI sources have verified that a letter received two days ago by the Los Angeles Times was sent from the southern highlands of Guatemala. It was most likely written by a member of the cultlike 2012 group once led by Colton Shetter, who has now been confirmed dead by the Guatemalan police.
According to the four-page letter, Shetter was tried by and excommunicated from the group he founded for his murder of researcher Rolando Chacon at the December 2012 raid at the Getty Museum. It is alleged that, following his trial, Shetter attempted to maintain his power using force and was killed in a fight with other members of the group. Using details given in the letter, Guatemalan authorities discovered Shetter’s body buried near Lake Izabal, one of the largest lakes in Guatemala. In what appears to have been a kind of ritual sacrifice, reminiscent of the ancient Maya themselves, Shetter’s heart and all his other organs had been cut out of his body.
The now infamous 2012 group’s whereabouts remain unknown, but the letter suggests it is now being led by Dr. Victor Granning. It indicates Granning plans to return the “Cannibalism Codex” to the Guatemalan village of Kiaqix, situated very close to the discovered ruins at Kanuataba, where experts believe the book was written. Granning believes that the exhibition of the codex close to its point of origin will bring much-needed support to the local indigenas affected by Thane’s disease, by invigorating tourism in the area.
The letter also states that Dr. Granning has made an important new discovery in the codex and that he therefore wants the book displayed for the “millions of new Believers to see.” The former UCLA professor and controversial icon, still sought by authorities for his role in the raid, claims to have found a mistake in the previously calculated date of the end of the ancient Long Count cycle. He now believes the correct date for the end of the thirteenth cycle of the calendar is November 28, 2020.
Chel stopped reading. Somewhere in the far reaches of this jungle, Victor was trying to make amends. Even in his absence, he’d become a kind of mythical figure among the Believers. Many on the new fringe considered his anti-city, anti-technology writings prophetic.
“He’s giving the codex back to you,” Stanton said.
There were no easy answers for what had happened—certainly not for how the legacy of her people had ended up in Chel’s hands. Whatever recalculations Victor might have made, who was to say some version of his 2012 predictions hadn’t already come true, and they were now living in the world he’d dreamed?
Sama giggled, and Chel stared into her little girl’s eyes.
It didn’t really matter anymore.
Chel was surrounded by the people she loved. And she was home.
She handed the article to her mother. Ha’ana took a quick glance and crumpled it up. “Come to Grandma, child,” she said, picking up Sama from the bassinet. “We have more important things to worry about, don’t we?”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
WHEN I FIRST ENCOUNTERED PRIONS (PRONOUNCED “PREEONS”) IN medical school, I became fascinated by these tiny proteins that had baffled scientists for fifty years. They served no apparent function in the brain, violated the central dogma of molecular biology stating that reproduction could only happen through the transfer of DNA or RNA, and caused incurable diseases, including mad cow.
As I read everything I could about prions, I learned that more than 150 people had died as a result of consuming infected beef during the mad cow epidemic, and that some scientists believe many more Britons have been exposed and millions more may still get sick. In my reading, I soon came upon another disease prions caused: fatal familial insomnia (FFI). While the disease primarily affects families in Italy and Germany, several new “sporadic” cases are discovered every year in other parts of the world, including Central America.
After learning that “kuru,” the first known cluster of prion disease, was found in the South Fore people of Papua New Guinea, and was transmitted through the practice of ritual cannibalism, the idea for 12.21 took
