Invasive Species (35 page)

HE AWOKE TO
a quiet, steady humming noise.

Not wings, neither inside nor outside his head. And not the frantic chop of a helicopter fighting its way through treacherous air. A steady, even sound, felt as much as heard.

He opened his eyes, tried to orient himself. First understanding nothing, but eventually attaining some kind of awareness. This strange shape was a body. His body, lying on its back.

His conscious mind still somewhere else. It was a tapestry so tattered you could see the light gleaming through it. A frayed flag hanging from a pole, pieces of it missing, gone forever.

He stared upward as his consciousness gathered itself. Above him was a curved surface, rows of yellow-green lights. He watched them for a while and then suddenly understood what he was looking at: the ceiling of an airplane. He was lying in the center aisle of a small jet. The hum was the sound of engines cruising through still, thin air.

His awareness sharpened. The shapes around him were faces. Sheila's face, upside down because his head was resting on her lap.

Then Kait's. Kait was squatting next to him, half in the aisle, half between two rows of seats. She had a white towel in her hand, an ice bucket at her feet, and as he shifted his eyes to look at her, she placed the cool, wet cloth against his forehead.

She saw him looking at her. Her expression was calm, only her bloodshot eyes showing any signs of emotion. “Hey,” she said.

He moved his mouth, but no sound came out. Even that effort made her face blur, and he closed his eyes again.

Lying there in the dark, he thought:
At least the hive mind is quiet.

He had that thought and realized at the same instant that he was capable of thought. That brought him part of the way back.

Listening inside, he heard only the most distant sound of wings, of screams. The thieves were still at work, but not here, and not with the intensity he'd witnessed—participated in—before unconsciousness had taken him.

For now, at least, he had been released.

He opened his eyes. Focused and tried again and managed to say, “Hey, you.”

The corners of Kait's mouth turned upward. Before she could speak, though, Sheila tilted Trey's head and held a plastic cup before his mouth.

“Drink,” she said.

He drank the cool water and felt his mind knit together a little more. Taking a deep breath, he struggled to get up. At first, Sheila protested and tried to keep him where he was, but eventually she sighed and helped him sit.

He'd been lying near the back of the Citation X corporate jet that Malcolm had spent weeks refitting for long-distance travel. In preparation for this one-way journey that Trey and Sheila had almost missed.

Among the passengers, about a dozen in total, he recognized a handful. But he knew who—and what—they all were: Doctors. Scientists. Architects. Carpenters. Brilliant researchers and people who knew how to fix anything that broke.

More empty seats than had been intended, though. Trey and Sheila clearly hadn't been the only ones trapped by the thieves' sudden attack. They were just the only ones who'd been rescued.

He looked at Sheila. She was wearing the same clothes she'd had on in Brooklyn. She hadn't even washed her face, which was smudged with soot and streaked with old tears.

“That's twice now,” he said, and he took in a long, ragged breath. “That you've saved me.”

She tilted her head and looked into his eyes. “Just give me a chance to take a breath before you make me do it again.”

Then she leaned forward and hugged him.

When they pulled apart, he said, “Where are we?”

She glanced at her watch. “About three hours out, four to go.”

Trey had no memory of it, but he knew they'd left from Westchester County Airport. Now they were heading east over the Atlantic.

He looked around again, and his heart gave a sudden thump. “Where's Mariama?”

Sheila made a calming gesture with her hands. “Don't worry. She's here.” A gesture toward the front of the plane. “In the cockpit.”

“Help me up,” he said.

“Trey . . .”

But already he was pulling himself to his feet. She helped him, and after a moment he stood, each hand on the back of a seat, propping himself up. All around, people were watching, but no one said anything.

Looking at him as if he were a walking corpse. Like he was still . . . the
other
.

He made his way forward. The cockpit door was ajar, the compartment beyond lit only with green and blue instrument lights.

With care, he pushed the door open, his eyes taking in the three figures within. Malcolm and a solidly built, blond-haired young man in khakis and a short-sleeved shirt sat at the controls. Both of them glanced back at him, then returned their attention to the black night that the jet was arrowing through.

Standing between them was Mariama, who turned. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened. Then she stepped forward and gave Trey a fierce hug.

“Don't break me, please,” he managed to gasp.

She released him, stared up into his face. “You're very strong,” she said.

“I don't feel strong.”

Her eyes were still wide. “I didn't expect you ever to awaken.”

Trey didn't reply. He looked out the cockpit window at an icy half-moon hanging in the darkness, and then down at Malcolm sitting in the copilot's seat.

“You know,” he said, “thanks.”

Malcolm glanced back. “One-time offer, mate.”

Trey said, “Deal.”

“And if Nick here wasn't staying behind, ready to fly this bird without me, I would've left you and that brave girlfriend of yours to fate.”

Trey, knowing it was the truth, shifted his gaze. “You, too, Nick. I owe you.”

Nick said, “No worries.”

“Christ,” Malcolm said, a rough edge to his voice that Trey hadn't heard before. “Have to tell you, when those bugs were coming for me, I worried plenty.”

Mariama said, “How did you protect yourself?”

“Protect myself?” Malcolm gave a laugh. “I ‘protected myself' by sitting there and waiting for them to bite me.” He shook his head. “Didn't do a thing. They just, like . . . disappeared on their own. Like they suddenly decided I wouldn't taste good. It must've been my lucky day.”

Again Mariama turned to look at Trey. He returned her gaze but didn't say anything.

“Strong,” she said again.

He was silent.

*   *   *

A FEW MINUTES
later another piece of the fragile quilt of Trey's mind knitted itself back together. He remembered something new: a glimpse he'd gotten of LaGuardia Airport in the distance as they passed nearby in the helicopter. The runways blocked by abandoned airplanes and emergency vehicles. A jumbo jet broken nearly in half, flames belching from the passenger windows.

Trey said, “Your runway was clear?”

Nick said, “Clear enough.”

“Man's being modest.” Malcolm's voice held echoes of what Trey guessed had been a terrifying experience, even for him. “He got us off the ground with about three feet of clearance.”

“I closed my eyes,” Mariama said.

There was silence for a while. Then Trey asked, “Is air-traffic control still broadcasting?”

“What? Wake up, pal.” Now Malcolm sounded uncharacteristically angry. “The last controller went off-air about fifteen minutes after we were airborne. You know the last thing he said before he started screaming?”

Trey waited.

“‘Don't land. Whatever you do,
don't land
.'”

The words hung in the quiet cockpit as the jet flew on, alone in the empty black sky.

*   *   *

A PALE SMEAR
on the horizon ahead. Emerging from the smear, a darker line. The west coast of Africa.

The plane banked and headed south, staying over the water, skirting the coast.

“Is it over?” Mariama asked.

They were sitting in the back, where six seats faced each other. Trey, Mariama, Sheila, Mary, and Kait.

The core group, missing only one.

Trey went deep inside himself to seek an answer. “No,” he said at last. Then, “. . . and yes. I think—” He struggled with the words. “I think it will take weeks or months before it's really over.”

Weeks or months of unimaginable deprivation, of agony, for those humans who were still alive.

“But if you're asking whether the war is over, then I think the answer is yes. Over and lost.”

“To the thieves, it's not a war,” Mariama said, sounding like Jack. “They don't know the meaning of the word ‘war.' To them, this was just another raid.”

Trey thought about what New York City—what other cities—must look like now. “Whatever you choose to call it,” he said, “we made it too damn easy for them.”

“Yes.”

Then Mariama's mouth firmed and her chin lifted.

“But never again,” she said.

*   *   *

THE PLANE BEGAN
a long, slow descent. Trey, sitting beside the window, looked out and watched as the land approached. Along the coast, a strip of white sand stretched out of sight in both directions, blue waves rolling to the shore. Beyond lay gray-green savanna, red earth, and the glistening silver stripe of a river. And, beyond that, the vast, rumpled green of the unbroken rain forest canopy stretching to the horizon.

Morning in the Casamance. Birds of prey—honey buzzards and black kites and a martial eagle—had already risen on the air currents and hung still, unmoving, as if pinned to the sky.

Beside him, Kait gazed at the forest and said, “It looks like broccoli.”

Trey remembered that Malcolm had said the same thing. All those months ago, on the day they'd first glimpsed the thieves' homeland.

“One advantage to the rain forest,” Sheila said from across the aisle. “You'll never run out of things to draw.”

Below, a lighter streak at the edge of the forest resolved itself into a long paved airstrip. Trey recognized the field where he and Malcolm had almost crashed their plane, but it had been transformed.

Beside the airstrip stood a wooden hangar with a tin roof, a limp wind sock drooping from a pole, and, pulled out of the way, a two-seater Piper like the ones Trey and Malcolm had flown so often. Around the hangar stood a small cluster of figures.

The jet took a long swing over the forest, bumping a little on the air currents, and then aimed its nose at the runway. As they swung around, Trey caught a glimpse of buildings below. Wood and stone dormitories, storage facilities, a medical clinic, a bigger tin-roofed structure that he knew was a laboratory. People moved between the buildings or stood looking up at the approaching jet.

They'd made remarkable progress, but the hard work was just beginning. The work of keeping the human species from going extinct.

The jet made its final descent, touched the ground, bounced along, and pulled to a stop.

*   *   *

MARIAMA LED THE
way down the stairs. Sheila and Kait helped Trey follow.

About a dozen people were there to greet them. Trey recognized only two. One was Seydou Honso, who wrapped his arms around his daughter like he would never let go of her again.

Honso and others here in the Casamance had understood what was happening. Months before, they'd looked into the future, known what it meant, and begun to prepare.

The other familiar face belonged to Clare Shapiro, tanned and fit. She'd been one of the first foreigners to join the Senegalese.

The team she'd gathered—scientists from a dozen disciplines and as many nations—was already studying the alkaloid that provided the “vaccine” against the thieves. Unlocking its secrets. Looking toward the day when it could be synthesized, mass-produced, used to save whatever was left of the world.

Somewhere in the compound, Trey knew, he'd find Elena Stavros, a member of Clare's team. She was here with her husband and the two girls whose photo Trey had spotted on her desk. He was looking forward to seeing them.

If Elena hadn't told him about Mariama's phone call, none of them would be here today.

“You look like something the cat drug in, Gilliard,” Clare said.

He summoned a smile. “And you look revoltingly healthy, Shapiro.”

“I know. It doesn't suit me.” She grinned, then stepped forward and, wonder of wonders, hugged him.

When she stepped back again, though, her expression was somber. “Once you're settled,” she said, “come see me. We'll figure out what we can do for you.”

He nodded.

She looked up into his face. “We've lost all contact with the outside. Did you see what happened?”

“I saw enough.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I'll tell you more later.”

“But we're on our own now.”

“Yes.”

Clare drew in a long breath. “Then I'd better get back to work.”

As she walked away, Trey felt someone nudge him. It was Kait, pointing over his shoulder.

“Look,” she said.

Trey looked, noticing for the first time the wooden sign nailed to the side of the hangar.

Refugia
, it read in drippy black letters.
Welcome!

“Refugia,”
Kait said, sounding out the unfamiliar word. “What does that mean?”

Sheila came up to stand beside them. She linked one arm with Trey's, draped her other over Kait's shoulder. Her face was gaunt, pale, filled with sorrow but also fierce determination.

“It means home,” she said.

Refugia

WRITTEN HISTORY, VOLUME 80

Year 19 + six months + four days

MY FATHER USED
to talk about a book, a novel, he'd read when he was a teenager. It was about a society that had survived an apocalypse, but all they had left to remind them of what came before was . . . a to-do list.

With items on it like, “Drop clothes at laundry.” Things meant to be forgotten ten minutes after they were written down.

But they weren't forgotten. Not by the survivors, who were so desperate to have something,
anything
, to remind them of the past, that they began to worship the list.

Dad said that the story didn't seem very believable to him even when he was a kid. But something about it must have stuck in his head. Because soon after we arrived here, he started to insist that those of us who had been there, in the Last World, had a responsibility to write down what we remembered. To leave a record for those who were too young back then, or who were born here, or who just chose to forget.

He said we had to make sure we never get stuck with shopping lists for memories.

So here I am, sitting inside and writing, even though I'd rather be doing almost anything else. But no one gets to opt out. We all take turns, writing down our memories and telling about the lives we live now.

So future archaeologists will know we were here, we were human, and we helped build the Next World out of the ashes of the last one.

*   *   *

YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO
write an entry every six months. I confess: It's been more like two years. One of the reasons I get away with this is because I'm the colony's resident illustrator/art teacher. I usually tell Refugia's story the best way I can—through pictures.

Back at the very beginning, on the morning after the Last World ended, Mom told me I'd never run out of things to draw. She was right, of course.

Though all I had back then was the single pad and plastic bag of colored pencils I'd brought with me. As if, when I used them up, I'd only have to visit the local art supply store to get new ones. Sure. Uh-huh.

But I was lucky. During the early years, when Malcolm and Nick were heading out on their foraging expeditions, somehow they found me a huge supply in a warehouse in what used to be the Gambia: cases of pencils, reams of paper.

But still, it wasn't enough. Not to last forever. So one of the things my students and I do now is make our own paper, paints, and inks.

That's how our world works. For as long as they last, you use the things mass-produced in the last one—whether they're colored pencils or internal combustion engines—and then you either do without or come up with replacements.

It's amazing how little we miss the things we used to take for granted. And how much we're capable of, as a species, when we use our hands and our minds.

*   *   *

BEFORE WE CAME
to Refugia, I used to draw the thieves again and again. I can't really remember why.

I don't draw them anymore. There's no need. Anyway, it would be a waste of paper.

The wasp-things.
Philanthus parkeri
.

The first species to be given a scientific name in the Next World.

*   *   *

OTHER PEOPLE, THE
ones who were alive a lot longer in the Last World than I was, have told its story much better than I ever could. I was only ten when it ended, and even though I have a good memory, most of that time seems fragmentary to me now. Surreal. A dream.

It's funny talking to those who were born here. It's hard enough to describe long-distance telephone calls, the idea that we could talk with someone on the other side of the world over wires. And when you try to describe how cell phones worked, they look at you like you're insane.

It seems pretty crazy now to me, too, actually. I mean, imagine it: To send a text message to someone in the next room, you needed the help of a satellite orbiting the earth. Who ever thought
that
was a good idea? Who ever imagined that system would last?

I remember begging for a cell phone and being told I had to wait until I was thirteen. Of course, by the time I was thirteen, no one had them. They had become part of the dream. The dream of the Last World.

You know what satellites are to us now? A show. You lie on the beach at night, looking west over the ocean, watching for meteors, and every once in a while there's this huge one, a fireball tumbling across the sky. Those are satellites falling back to earth because no one is tending to them anymore.

When he was little, my brother, Jack, asked if anyone was ever hit by a falling satellite. Mom kind of laughed and said that, even in the Last World, sometimes satellites would fall. And, yes, people would worry, but she didn't think anyone was ever actually hit by one.

“Even then, it was a pretty empty world,” she said.

“But emptier now?” Jack asked.

She said, “Yes, honey. Emptier now.”

And the skies are so much clearer than they used to be.

*   *   *

SATELLITES. SPACESHIPS THAT
went to the moon. Airplanes flying people every which way around the earth. The world is a whole lot quieter these days, especially since the last airplane, Malcolm's baby, broke for good. How long ago was that? About ten years, I guess.

Everyone was sure its final flight would end in a crash, and Malcolm would have to walk home. But the truth was, one day it just didn't work anymore. Some part he'd been patching with bubble gum finally gave up the ghost.

That was when he began to follow his next obsession. The one that's about to take flight tomorrow.

If I can be poetic for a second.

*   *   *

THE LAST TIME
I wrote here, I talked a lot about my grandma Mary. I won't go over it again, but I wanted to make sure I mentioned her. She is not forgotten.

I visit her grave sometimes, but not so often as I once did. I've decided I want to remember her alive, protecting me, bringing Mom and Dad to me.

Mom agrees. “The world is full of memorials,” she says. “Memories are more important.”

Mom says things like that.

Mom, Sheila Connelly, is not my birth mother. You need to know that, and also that I do remember my real ma and da. They're in all the histories people have written about the Last World. Their part was important, even though they never knew it, because it brought Grandma and me together with Mom, and then with everyone else.

Everyone else: the names in every history of Refugia. Grandma Mary's, Mom's and Dad's, Mariama's. And Jack Parker, who died rescuing us from the thieves.

The graveyard here gets steadily bigger, of course. People die . . . but not as fast as babies are born. That's how it has to be, if we're going to survive.

The first step, at least.

It's been years since the thieves killed any of us. Clare Shapiro, Elena Stavros, and their group have made the vaccine work so well that the wasps don't dare come near. Why should they? It's still a big world out there, and they don't like the way we taste.

I wish they had stayed here in the Casamance to begin with. I wish they had never figured out that humans made good hosts. I wish they had gone extinct without ever being discovered and named.

I wish I wish I wish. But here's the truth: I'm selfish. Because I would have accepted all the lives lost to spare just one. . . .

*   *   *

AS YOU ALL
know, the last person killed by the thieves was my father. Trey Gilliard.

He was never stung. Once we came here, he was protected by the vaccine, just as the rest of us are. It just came . . . too late for him. Back in the Last World, the thieves poisoned him, and despite everyone's best efforts to find a treatment—Mom's and Clare Shapiro's most of all—there was nothing that could be done.

What you also need to know is that he wasn't in pain, those last years. His mind was quiet, and that was all that mattered. That and seeing us, Jack and me and the rest of Refugia, grow up. Thrive.

Near the end, he liked most to sit on the beach and watch Malcolm, Nick, and their team at work. To sit and dream of what was to come, even if he knew he wouldn't be part of it.

The next New World.

At his funeral, everyone cried. Even Clare, though she didn't want anyone to notice.

Me? I thought I'd never stop crying. I hadn't felt like a little girl for a long time, maybe not ever, but I did then. When I think of it, I still do.

*   *   *

AS I SAID,
the thieves have the run of a big world these days, but maybe it's not as comfortable for them as it used to be. When his airplane was still working, Malcolm reported that he saw fewer and fewer every trip. They'd killed or used up too many hosts in their last great raid, and too many possible other hosts (people, dogs, horses, cattle, even rats) had died off in the chaos that followed.

The thief population had to crash, and it did. That's how things work in nature. No one escapes unscathed.

They'll never go extinct, of course. They're here to stay. We're always going to have to live alongside them.

Dad said that the human race once believed it owned the world. No one thinks that way anymore. Now we consider ourselves lucky just to get to live on it for a while.

*   *   *

I MIGHT NOT
be related to Dad by blood, but I seem to have inherited his love of exploration. (He called it his itchy feet.) So when Malcolm's baby, the obsession that kept him—and whoever else he could dragoon into helping—busy every waking hour for a decade, was finally done, I was the first to sign up.

Malcolm's baby: a gorgeous square-rigged sailing ship built from tropical hardwood and equipped for ocean travel. Modeled after the great expeditionary craft that crossed the seas in the Last World, before the steam engine and the silicon chip and nuclear power and satellites took over.

After Dad died, Malcolm named it the
Trey Gilliard
. I painted the letters on the bow.

We cast off tomorrow morning. As many as Refugia can spare are going: doctors and scientists and those who, like me, just want to see what lies on the other side of the horizon.

I'm bringing a pad and a bag of colored pencils along, so when we come back I can show you all what the New World looks like.

*   *   *

WE'RE PLANNING TO
find out who else is out there. Because there
must
be others, somewhere, living in their own Refugias. Everyone is sure of it, even Clare Shapiro. We have to believe we're not alone.

Dad often spoke of one Refugia he was positive still survived in the highlands of the island of New Guinea.

“You have an uncle and aunt there,” he told me and Jack, right near the end. “And cousins, too. I want you to meet them.”

We will, Dad. I promise.

—Kaitlin Finneran Gilliard,
Founder and Citizen of Refugia