Berenike knew her papa would have made great fun of her work. “So there I was, fighting at the front lines, when I spilled coffee on my phone. It was a battlefield disaster.” Papa. No more jokes from him ever again. The AI counselor advised taking a deep breath, centering herself, and moving forward from sad memories. She considered that, and instead she smiled. He was still telling jokes—from the great beyond.
Messages relayed by Emergency Government from utilities said they were having trouble with staffing and wanted its employees to get prioritized transportation to get to work. Done, with a little juggling. The city had also put out some news about effective home care and urged self-quarantine. She read it carefully and wasn’t sure about its recommendations. Everyone should act as if they were infected and carried the virus. Okay, that meant her. Then what?
A client somehow made it through the automated system to talk to her directly. “I need more cars. We’re distributing food, and people need to eat.”
She checked. He ran a high-end imported-food warehouse on the Northwest Side and used autocars for deliveries.
She said, “The priorities are for medical supplies and transport.”
“People want their orders filled.”
“You’re not a priority business.” No one needed pickled green papaya to survive.
“You can’t tell me that. We have a contract with your company.”
“This company’s been commandeered. Priorities are different.” She pushed a few buttons. He’d been calling for quite a few cars, even more than normal. “You need to close and send your employees home.”
“No, we have paying customers.”
He hung up. She sent a message to the police. Something seemed fishy.
Old Man Tito came to her office. “It’s time for me to go home.”
He should have gone home a long, long time ago, but he kept refusing. She stood up and studied his face, at least what she could see around the mask he wore behind a protective visor. His eyelids seemed unusually heavy. “Are you okay? No, you’re not.”
“The news says that not everyone dies.”
“You’re feeling lucky?”
“I don’t feel right staying here and infecting everyone and everything.”
“Do you have someone to care for you?”
“I’ll be fine.” He seemed sluggish.
“Let me give you some supplies. You’re a priority worker, you know.”
“Priority? Me?”
She pulled a box of ibuprofen from a drawer and handed him a couple of blister packs. “Here, take these. They’ll help with the fever. Remember, drink lots of fluids. Do you need to get stuff from your locker? I can call you to see how you’re doing.”
“You don’t need to do all this for me.”
“You’re right, I don’t, but I want to.” If she had a cot in the back room, she might offer to care for him there. She followed him to a newly cleaned car. “I’ll call.”
“Don’t bother with me. Keep up what you’re doing.”
How long before she got sick? She had long willed herself into health out of necessity. That might not save her anymore.
CHAPTER7
Avril had found three people who were sick as she went door to door. Two were fending for themselves, although they asked her to get something to eat and drink. She brought them up trays of the best of what little was left in the food court. The third burned with a fever and could barely speak. She asked him his name and where he was to see if he was thinking coherently.
“At the beach in Mexico. I mean, I’m in the hotel room at the beach.”
She forced him to drink a glass of cold water despite all his complaints that he wasn’t thirsty, then she ran to the makeshift clinic and brought back some medications to fight a fever along with a glass of lemonade.
“I brought you a cocktail from the bar.”
“Pills? I don’t want pills.”
“You want to party, right? These will have you dancing like you’ve never danced before. Special designer drugs, the latest from Brazil. What’s your favorite dance music?”
By the time she left, he promised to go down to the club as soon as he finished his nap.
“I’ll be there, too,” she said. Was it good medical practice to entertain his hallucinations? She didn’t know, but she hoped she’d done some good by playing along.
She was knocking on doors in the other wing of Dejope Hall when her phone chimed. Bowley again. Now what? It wouldn’t be good.
“Yeah?” Even to say hello would be more polite than the chancellor deserved.
“We want to make a deal.”
Probably a bad one. “What’s your best offer?” Always negotiate from a position of strength, even if that strength is as real as that guy’s beach resort.
“We’ll unlock the dorm if you do what we say.”
“Yeah?” she said again with all the strength of skepticism that she could muster.
“We want you to surrender to our custody.”
She weighed that for a second. “That’s a big ask for a small exchange.” Actually, it meant that Dad had to be worth a lot, which made her glad.
“Everyone else would go free.”
“By everyone, do you mean this dorm?”
“Yes.”
“They’ll get access to medical care?”
“Um.…”
Avril waited. Waiting was strength. Why would they be offering that deal now? She remembered when Cal said the music in the food court was loud so that people could talk freely. That meant that the staff had included mutineers. The chancellor might be having trouble holding the campus in lockdown. Dad often said that criminals overestimated themselves.
Bowley finally spoke. “Understand, it’s hard to get medical care right now.”
“They need care. Denying care would be dereliction of duty.” As if Bowley and the Prez and all their supporters hadn’t broken a million other laws already.
“We can try. They can look for it themselves, at least. They’ll be free to do that.”
A crappy offer. Avril walked to a bench near the elevators. This
