“And where is here, exactly?”
“The island,” she replied.
“Which island?” he asked.
“Just the island,” she replied. “Now eat up and I’ll tellyou more about what’s happened.”
Josh felt a little wary at her evasiveness over theirlocation but decided to leave it for now and let her explain while he got stuckinto the food. He put some pieces of pineapple and some strawberries into abowl and began to eat.
“It’s just the two of us here, is it?” he asked.
“It’s just the two of us anywhere,” she said. “Do youremember anything about what happened?”
“You’re going to have to fill me in,” he replied, his mind atotal blank.
“There was a plague,” she said sadly. “A lethal virusengineered in a laboratory by a crazy scientist who wanted to hold the world toransom. When the governments refused to play ball, he released it.”
“Who was he?” asked Josh.
“His name was Henry Jones,” she replied. “He was a very evilman. In addition, he was completely mad, and let me tell you, extreme insanityand a lethal pathogen make for a highly dangerous combination.”
“You said it was just the two of us left,” he said. “Do youmean in the whole world?”
“I’m afraid so,” she replied sadly. “It was the perfectvirus. Everyone else in the world is dead.”
“What makes us so special? Why are we immune?”
“We’re not,” she replied. “I worked at the lab where thevirus was developed and managed to smuggle out a small amount of the cure, butit was only enough for the two of us. And you were out of town when ithappened. The virus spread across the world like wildfire and you caught itbefore I could get to you. I only just reached you in time to administer it.”
“Out of town?” he asked. “Which town? And how did we end uphere?”
“You were ill for many weeks,” she replied, “but we had toget away from the heavily populated areas. The dead were piling up everywhereand the smell and the decay was appalling. We would have died of some otherdisease if we had stayed. I managed to get you down to the harbour and onto ayacht which I managed to sail here.”
“You still haven’t told me where here is.”
“You were actually right earlier about it being part of aholiday resort, but it’s not Sandals. It’s one of a number of private andexclusive islands that you can book for the ultimate desert island experience.We stayed here for our honeymoon many years ago and it seemed as good a placeas any to head for.”
She took the pan off the stove and removed his eggs, placingthem in a double eggcup.
Looking at all the food in front of him, a thought struckJosh.
“If what you’re saying is true – and everyone in the worldis dead – then where has all this fresh food come from?”
She looked at him and paused temporarily as she thought ofan answer. She could hardly tell him the truth – that she just nipped backthrough time at her convenience once a week to sail across to a supermarket ona neighbouring island.
“It’s all done by food replicators,” she replied. “Thisresort has got the most advanced technology in the whole world. In fact, theentire island is self-sufficient, all powered by solar and wave power. With thereplicators we can make whatever we need. It means we can spend the rest of ourlives here – it’s our own private paradise. No wonder rich film stars used topay a million dollars a week to stay here.”
She had lied about the replicators. Food replicationtechnology had been coming along nicely, another of her projects from Canberra,but it wasn’t that good. Never mind, she would just have to gloss over it nowand if he got suspicious or asked to see how they worked she’d just wipe hismemory again.
She had already had to wipe his memory three times when hestarted asking awkward questions. Eventually she would get it right.
For the moment, he seemed to accept what she was saying. Theconversation had certainly gone better than it had on the three previousoccasions. She was learning to anticipate his responses each time.
Soon she would try and make the move on him she had dreamtabout for so long. It was no coincidence that she had chosen to wear hersexiest leotard, but before that there was a little more business to take careof.
As he tucked into his eggs, another thought struck him.
“If these food replicators are so good, why do you have tocook the eggs? Can’t you just replicate them precooked?”
“They’re never as good that way,” she said. “It’s a bit liketrying to microwave them in those old, plastic holders. They come out allrubbery. The food replicators are good, but they have their limitations.”
This wasn’t working out too well. Perhaps if she did have towipe his memory again she’d have to stock up on tinned food instead: at leastshe could explain that more easily.
“Now, while you’re drinking your orange juice, you need totake one of these,” she said, taking a small medicine bottle from one of thekitchen surfaces and tipping out a small, yellow pill.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Something you need to take every day,” she replied. “It’sthe only thing that keeps the virus in your body dormant. Without it, it wouldmutate and kill you.”
Josh felt a little sceptical about this, but he decided totake her word for it. He put the pill in his mouth and knocked it back with aswig of orange juice.
Now Vanessa was ready to make her move. She sidledseductively towards him along the table, with a suggestive look in her eye.
“Since you’re feeling better, how about we go back to bedfor a while?”
He couldn’t put a finger on it, but something to Josh didn’tfeel quite right about all of this. Something had been nagging at his mindthroughout breakfast, but he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. Now itsuddenly came to him. If she really was his wife, wouldn’t she have known howhe liked his eggs?
“Listen, Vanessa, would you mind if we waited a while. Iknow it
