Tooth And Nail

Chapter 9

They do not deserve to take it all from us

The sun is shining and the streets are jammed with people enjoying the end of summer. In Central Park, hundreds lie on blankets in Sheep Meadow, sleeping or reading. Several boys with their shirts off throw an orange Frisbee back and forth, while a dog playfully barks and scampers between them. Christopher sits on a bench bouncing Alexander on his knee. They both smile eagerly as she approaches them barefoot and laughing. Alexander demands ice cream. Valeriya Petrova suggests a ride on the Merry-Go-Round instead and he shouts for joy before realizing he’s been fooled, suddenly declaring his interest in both ice cream and a ride.

What flavor, Alex? Christopher asks.

Alexander looks up at his father and cries exultantly: Vanilla!

Her eyes flicker to Christopher, deliciously aware that he is unaware of being watched, and knows they are getting older every day and that some day they will die and there will be nothing and they will never be together like this again. Instead of making her sad, the thought fills her with a strange elation that she is alive and not dead, that she still has time, that they all have time, before even just this single perfect day ends. And her son has even longer and all the world lies before him.

Tonight she will make love to her husband and whisper thank you in his ear as she does at times when she feels like this, when she cannot contain the beauty of her life and the joy her family brings her.

Harsh white light shatters the darkness.

The building groans to life as its systems reboot.

Petrova lies under the desk, shivering with her eyes clenched shut.

You must get up, she tells herself. You must not give up. You must survive for them.

No, stay and dream a little while longer. Maybe the dream is true. Maybe, outside, the world has returned to normal. People in the park, laughing and playing. Lying on the warm grass, reading a paperback—

No—

Outside, she knows, the world is dying.

Everybody she has ever known, everybody she has ever loved, everything she cherished as part of life, is being destroyed.

She knows that she is probably going to die here without ever seeing the sun again. Without ever seeing her son again.

So far away.

Mankind will not cross the Atlantic again for perhaps hundreds of years. London may as well be on another planet. Within a generation, even the word “London” may cease to be generally remembered in North America. Knowledge that there are other continents at all may slowly be forgotten as future generations struggle to survive.

All this because a tiny little biological machine simply wants to live.

If the virus could think and speak, it would say it has a right to try to multiply, to fight for dominance, to survive. Survival, in fact, is the virus’ sole purpose. It is designed to survive. That is what makes it so strong. It was virtually the first form of life on the planet, and it will be the last.

But it is not better than us, she thinks. Stronger, maybe. But not better.

Can a virus make its human puppets paint a sunset, for example, that reflects the soul of the real thing? Possessing mind but not thought, does it understand the concept of science, progress, the betterment of the species? Has it ever looked up with its borrowed eyes at the stars and wonder if there are other planets that can support life, perhaps life it can talk to? Can it understand charity or love or empathy or mercy? Has a Mad Dog, roaming the streets feverishly searching for a new host, ever felt anything in its extremely short life span beyond a toxic level of pain and rage?

They do not deserve to take it all from us. They are just machines. Living software. They will kill everyone and destroy everything, only to die off themselves and disappear as fast as they came, leaving despair and ruin behind. And this security equipment and all the other human machines will simply lie here rotting for years under layers of dust, perhaps to be picked up generations later by uncomprehending descendants.

It is unfair—

A sudden burst of anger gives her just enough strength to move her hand.

With great effort, she reaches across the carpet. Her body follows, as slow as a snail, but as determined. Fear weighs down on her with its own special gravity, and she wonders if she will make it. But soon she is standing, looking into the security screens, where she sees Sandy Cohen lying broken on the floor outside.

Dead.

We are just meat to them, she thinks. They consume us and throw away the wrapper.

Even the air feels heavy in her lungs.

If you do not want to die here, get busy doing something else, she tells herself.

Her eyes flicker to a pack of cigarettes on the desk. Jackson was a smoker. Petrova quit four years ago, before she got pregnant with Alexander. Has not touched one since.

Just one, she decides. To help me think.

Petrova ignites the tip of the cigarette and inhales deeply, feeling guilty about it in part, strangely, because she is doing it in a public place. In more ways than one, ingrained habits die hard. She coughs. She inhales again and does not cough. Like riding a bike. Within moments, the head rush assails her brain.

So much for quitting, she thinks. It was agony to quit, and she is throwing it all away for three quarters of a pack of Marlboro Lights. And not even menthol, which she prefers. On the other hand, between the epidemic and the Mad Dogs, she doubts she is going to see an abundance of cigarettes anywhere anytime soon. Perhaps forever.

She suddenly realizes that she does not have much time. The power might go out again, and if it stays off, she will have no way to survive.

She begins to take stock of her surroundings. Most of the desk drawers are stuffed with paper records, logs, office supplies and old manuals. The bottom desk drawer contains a half-full quart bottle of whiskey, an almost full carton of cigarettes, a condom, a heavily dog-eared copy of Juggs, a package of salted peanuts, and a clipboard holding some sort of training schedule. She removes the peanuts and devours them greedily.

Lovely, she thinks. The only things I have lots of are cigarettes and pornography.

One of the storage bins holds flashlights, which she removes, tests and sets aside.

But no guns or other weapons. Petrova knows that the security staff carries at least a billy club and a TASER, but Jackson either has these items on him, lost them during the fight with Baird, or discarded them afterwards. That just leaves her golf club, next to which she places a small steel fire extinguisher and a box cutter tool.

Petrova finds the bathroom adjacent to this main room and uses it, smoking a second cigarette on the toilet with the door open and the light off. For a few moments, the smoking dampens her hunger.

She snaps her fingers, stands up and flushes. Pausing at the sink, trying not to look at herself in the mirror, she hurriedly washes her face and hands, and dries them with paper towels. Then she goes back to the operator station.