Shelter (15 page)

    Meredith shrugged. "He's tired, Mom. It's a long flight." But even she was a little shocked by how drawn he looked.

    There were no expansive exclamations this time. "Hello, darlings. I don't want to kiss you. I'm sick. I think I have a fever."

    "No wonder," Constance said. "You run yourself ragged. Preston, you look awful. I'll go get you some tea and aspirin."

    "Don't bother, Connie. I'm going right to bed. Good night, Merry."

    "I hope you feel better," Meredith said, fighting an uneasy pang of guilt. She'd wished illness on him, and here he was, sick. He never got sick. But surely he'd be better tomorrow, and anyway, this would work to her advantage. It was only four in the afternoon. That meant that Preston would definitely wake up before Constance did the next morning, and that would give Meredith time to work on him. She was tired too, since she'd gotten so little sleep the night before; she'd go to bed early and set her alarm, just to be safe.

    She went to bed at ten, and set the alarm for five. The alarm never went off. Instead, Meredith was awakened by running footsteps in the hall and a muffled blur of voices. When she opened her eyes, there were flashing red lights outside, and her clock read 3:30 A.M. There must be a fire, she thought groggily, and reached for her slippers—if there was a fire she'd have to go outside, and she didn't want to do that in her bare feet—and she'd have to rescue the animals. That thought jolted her into alertness, and as she shoved on her second slipper she glanced out the window at the fire trucks. How many? Did they have their hoses out? She didn't smell smoke.

    There were three trucks, but they were white. White? What did—

    There was a knock, and her bedroom door opened. The figure who entered was also white, clad in a spotless white suit like a spacesuit, with a breathing tank on the back and a helmet. A voice came from the suit, amplified and tinny. "Meredith, you don't know me. My name's Linda. I'm a paramedic. Don't be afraid."

    Terrorists, Meredith thought, cold with fear. How had they gotten past the gates? Were they going to kidnap her? "You're here because of my father," she said. Of course they were. They wanted his money.

    "Yes, that's right," came the tinny voice. "He's very sick, Meredith. Very sick. We have to take him to the hospital. And he has to be in isolation. The fever he has—it looks like a bad one, one that can be spread very easily. And I'm afraid that you and your mother will have to be in isolation too, until we find out if he gave it to you."

    "Fever?" she said, stupid with sleep and fear. She'd wished illness on him. How could she have done that? "He was sick last night—when he got home .... "

    "Meredith, how long did you spend with him last night? Did you touch him? Was he coughing or sneezing, or were his eyes running, anything like that?"

    She shook her head. "No, just a few minutes. He was tired, he had to go to bed ... he didn't want to kiss us because he was sick." Fever. Isolation. And the white suits, not spacesuits at all, but earthsuits, isolation suits. Biocontainment. Oh, sweet Gaia. Goddess Earth protect us now and always .... She swallowed and said, "What does he have? Where did he get it?"

    "We aren't sure yet," the suit said. "You have to come with me now, Meredith. I'm sorry. You have to stay at the hospital for a while too."

    In isolation. She was going to get sick too, she knew it. She'd wished illness on her father, and whatever you wished for other people came back to you threefold. That was what the Gaia Temple taught. "And my mother? Will she be there too?"

    "Yes."

    "Who's staying here? Someone has to stay here to take care of my animals. I have two snakes and finches and gerbils and mice. They'll die if no one feeds them."

    The white suit shook its helmet. "No one's staying. No one can stay here until we know for sure what your father has, and no one can come here from outside. The estate will be quarantined."

    "My animals—"

    "They have to stay here. They could be disease vectors."

    "They aren't disease vectors! Daddy didn't get near them! I can't just leave them here—they'll die! Let me take them with me."

    "You can't. I'm sorry. Pack a little bag if you want to: some clothing, books—"

    "One," Meredith said. "One or two. One of the snakes and a few mice to feed it."

    "No, Meredith. I'm sorry. I know this is very scary for you, but you have to get ready now."

    "One animal," Meredith said, near tears.

    "No animals. I'm sorry."

    "They'll die without anyone to feed them."

    "Meredith," the voice said, and Meredith heard a mechanical whisper, a hiss that might have been a sigh. There was a pause before the voice began again. "Meredith, it's a bad fever. A very bad fever. We think he got it in Africa. We think it's something we've already seen there. And if we don't contain it a lot of people could die, do you understand that? Not just mice. People."

    She blinked. Gaia protect us. "My—my father? He has it?"

    "We don't know. We can't tell yet."

    Numbly, she let herself be led through the motions of packing: a toothbrush, shorts and T-shirts, a nightgown, the framed photograph of Squeaky that sat on her desk. She whispered good-bye to the gerbils before she left and put extra food and water in their cage, praying that they'd be all right until all of this was over, until she got back. They were desert animals. They could survive scarcity, please, please, and so could the others. Surely they could. Goddess protect us.

    She insisted on giving the finches and the mice extra food too, and on putting several mice in the terrarium with the snakes so that they could eat. She said good-bye to the creatures and then she let herself be walked outside to the white truck. Only one now. Constance and Preston had already been driven away. During the ride to the hospital, she realized that in saying good-bye to the animals, she might have missed the chance to say good-bye to her parents.

    Six

    THE isolation unit was decorated with posters of beautiful places: Tahoe, the Maine coast, the Colorado Rockies. Its full-spectrum lighting dimmed and brightened according to diurnal rhythms. It boasted a complete entertainment center and a small gym: a StairMaster, an Exercycle, a set of weights. Its bathroom contained not only a shower but a sauna and whirlpool bath. It was as cheerful and comfortable as medical compassion could make it, and Meredith hated it with her entire heart, whenever she was coherent enough to feel anything about it at all.

    She spent three months there, moments of panicky hope and lucid terror alternating with long periods of feverish dementia. During her conscious intervals, she learned all too well why Squeaky might have chafed at even the most luxurious of cages. Visitors could observe her through a thick window, but couldn't come inside unless they donned a containment suit, an item of apparel permitting no more intimacy than the window did. Because the containment suits were so awkward, even her doctors and nurses tended to avoid them, delegating her care to sensors and waldo arms and arachnid robots who perched on her bedside, clicking and humming, to draw blood. They were MacroCorp bots, of course. They made her no fonder of the family business.

    For the first four days, Meredith prowled her suite, doing long stints on the StairMaster, soaking in the Jacuzzi, trying not to think about what might happen to her, or to her animals, or to her parents. Several times a day, she spoke to her mother on the telephone. "I feel fine, Merry. I don't think I'm going to get sick. How do you feel?"

    ''I'm fine. I don't think I'm going to get sick, either. How's Daddy? Why can't I talk to him?"

    "He's—he's feverish, honey. He'll talk to you when he gets better." "Do they know what he has?"

    "They aren't sure," Constance said, her voice tight, and dread pooled in Meredith's stomach.

    "You're lying, aren't you? It's really bad, isn't it? Mommy, what does he have?"

    "I told you, they don't know! I'm not lying, Merry. It's—it's new, they—"

    "Is that why my TV's not working?"

    "What?"

    "I can't get any news. Just old movies and game shows." Meredith glanced at the TV behind her, where several people dressed in inflated clown suits were hopping on pogo sticks through a maze, trying to win a year's subscription to ScoopNet. "Mommy, what's going on?" There was a beat of silence, and Meredith said, "Tell me. Please tell me. Whatever it is, it won't scare me as much as sitting here thinking about what could possibly be bad enough for a news blackout. Mommy-"

    "All right, all right, I'll tell you. There's—there's a new pandemic. It started in Africa."

    Meredith felt as if the floor had dropped out from under her. "Where Daddy was. That's where he got it. How many dead?"

    " Meredith—"

    "How many dead?"

    Meredith heard her mother swallow. "Thirty thousand, so far." Sweet Gaia, Meredith thought, and squeezed her eyes shut. "It's airborne, and it mutates incredibly quickly. ScoopNet's calling it Caravan Virus because you don't just get one bug, you get a whole train of them."

    Meredith took a deep breath. "It's definitely what Daddy's got?"

    "Yes," Constance said. And then, her voice eerily calm, "But you don't have to worry about him."

    "What does that mean? How can you know that? If he's so sick—"

    "Don't worry," Constance said quietly. "Meredith, I have to go now. The doctors are here."

    "Wait! Mommy, are you sure you're feeling okay? I'm feeling okay. Mommy—"

    ''I'm fine, honey. I'll call you later. Good-bye."

    "I love you," Meredith said, the first time she'd said it in months, but the phone was dead. Meredith cursed and dialed for a nurse, and a harried man in scrubs appeared behind the isolation window. "I want news, please."

    "Ms. Walford—"

    "My name's Meredith. My mother told me about Caravan Virus. She told me my father's sick. I want to be able to watch the news, not those idiots." Meredith gestured at the screen. Two of the people on pogo sticks had fallen over and were blocking the maze; the other two, dismounted, stabbed furiously at the fallen contestants' clown suits, trying to deflate them so they could move onward to the finish line.

    The nurse sighed. "Looks like you got it."

    "What?" Meredith turned around and saw, incredibly, her father's face on the television.

    "Hello, my daughter Meredith. You are Meredith, my daughter. How are you feeling this afternoon, Meredith?"

    "What? What is this?" Meredith turned back to the window, but the nurse was gone.

    "You must excuse my awkwardness," the television said. "I hope to overcome it soon. I am experiencing, how do they say, the difficulties of the tech—tech—technical sort, but these are not serious and will not last. I have only been here a few hours now. It is all very new."

    "Go away! What are you, some kind of wonky AI impersonating my father? Off, screen!"

    The screen stayed on. "I am Preston. I am your father. I have been translated—"

    Meredith fought panic. "Mute, screen!"

    "No, Meredith my daughter. You must listen." Preston's image blurred and rippled, reconfiguring itself into a frown. "Meredith, it is imperative. You must inform the doctors if you develop headache, rash, fever, double vision, cold sores, vertigo—"

    "The doctors know before I do when I need to pee. What are you, and why won't you go away?"

    "I am your father. This is a new technique. We have been developing it. My personality and memory have been stored…my sensorium . . . it was to be an experiment, the translation. Now it is . . .it is . . . where I live."

    "Where you live?" Meredith squinted and sat down cautiously on her bed. "Is my father still alive?"

    "I am your father. I am. Ask me questions: test me. I know about Squeaky the squirrel. I know about the algebra test you failed last year. For your last birthday I brought you a kangaroo hologram from Australia."

    Merry took a deep breath. Anyone could have known those things; Preston's life had long been MacroCorp property, endlessly massaged by the PR brigade. And he was home so seldom that she couldn't think of any personal questions to ask to test him. "You can't be my father. My father's a human being."

    "I am your father. How are you feeling?"

    I feel like I'm losing my mind. Meredith rang for the nurse again. "What," Meredith said, pointing to the television set, "is that?" The set itself was still speaking, but she ignored it.

    The nurse cleared his throat. "That's, uh, your dad."

    "You mean it's a simulacrum of my dad. And not a very good one, either. If this is a joke—"

    "Tell her," the television said. "She will not believe me, her father." The nurse cleared his throat again. "Merry, your father—he was very sick. Very sick."

    "Was? Does that mean he's better now?" The door behind the nurse opened, and a very tall man with red hair hurried in: Jack Adam, MacroCorp PR chief. He was dressed in an expensive suit; he always wore expensive suits. Meredith suspected he slept in them. She liked him, anyway, and always had. He was a nice person; sometimes his perpetual media smile even seemed genuine. But he wasn't smiling today. He looked exhausted.

    "Jack," she said. "I was surprised you hadn't come to see me."

    "I've been busy, Merry."

    "Jack," said the television, "tell Meredith my daughter—"

    ''I'm telling her, Preston. That's what I'm here to do. Take a break, okay? Give us half an hour." Merry turned just in time to see her father's face fade, replaced by one of the inflated clowns hopping furiously over the finish line, to insane cheering from the studio audience.

    "Off," Merry snapped. This time it worked. "Jack, what—"

    "Shhhh. Listen, I just came from seeing your mother and she's fine, okay?"

    "I know. I just talked to her. But Daddy—"

    "Merry, sit and listen, all right? I know this is hard. I know it is. We didn't want to tell you until you were out of here, but your father, uh, got a little anxious. He wanted to see how you were, wanted to tell you himself, but he's, ah, not acclimated very well yet. Tripping over his feet, in a manner of speaking."