Greg Bear - Darwin's Children

“Fifty in the past couple of hours. A hundred and ninety today, total. And sixty last night.”

“Sick?” Augustine asked.

“Dead,” Middleton said.

“We haven’t had time for a formal count,” Trask said. “But it is serious.”

“I need to visit a sick ward as soon as possible,” Dicken said.

“The whole school is a sick ward,” Middleton said.

“It’s tragic,” DeWitt said. “They’re losing their social cohesion. They rely on each other so much, and nobody’s trained them how to get along when there’s a disaster. They’ve been both sheltered and neglected.”

“I think their physical health is our main concern now,” Trask said.

“I assume there’s some sort of medical center,” Dicken said. “I’d like to study samples from the sick children as quickly as possible.”

“I’ve already arranged for that,” Trask said. “You’ll work with Dr. Kelson.”

“Has the staff given specimens?”

“We took samples from the sick children,” Trask said, and smiled helpfully.

“But not from the staff?” Dicken blinked impatiently at Trask.

“No.” The director’s ears pinked. “Nobody saw the need. We’ve been hearing rumors of a full quarantine, a complete lockdown, everyone, no exceptions. Most of us have families…” He let them draw their own conclusions about why he did not want the staff tested. “It’s a tough choice.”

“You sent samples to the Ohio Department of Health and the CDC?”

“They’re waiting to go out now,” Trask said.

“You should have sent them as soon as the first child became ill,” Dicken said.

“There was complete confusion,” Trask explained, and smiled. Dicken could tell Trask was the sort of man who hid doubt and ignorance behind a mask of pleasantry. Nothing wrong here, friends. All is under control. As if expressing a confidence, Trask added, “We are used to them being so healthy.”

Dicken glanced at Augustine, hoping for some clue as to what was really going on here, what relationship or control Augustine had over a person like Trask, if any. What he saw frightened him. Augustine’s face was as calm as a colorless pool of water on a windless day.

This was not the Mark Augustine of old. And who this new man might become was not something Dicken wanted to worry about, not now.

They passed an elevator and a flight of stairs.

“My office is up there, along with the communications and command center,” Trask said. “Dr. Augustine, please feel free to use it. It’s on the second floor, with the best view of the school, well, besides the view from the guard towers, which we use mostly for storage now. First, we’ll visitthe medical center. You can begin work there immediately—away from the confusion.”

“I’d like to see the children right away,” Dicken insisted.

“By all means,” Trask said, eyes shifting. “It will be hard to miss the children.” The director walked ahead at a near lope, then looked over his shoulder, saw that Dicken was not nearly as nimble, and doubled back.

DeWitt seemed eager to say something, but not while Trask was in earshot.

“Let me describe our facilities,” Trask said. “Joseph Goldberger is the largest school in Ohio, and one of the largest in the country.” His hands waved as if outlining a box. “It was built six years ago on the site of the Warren K. Pernicke Corrections Center, a corporate facility administered by Namtex Limited. Pernicke was shut down after the change in drug laws and the subsequent twenty percent drop in the prison population.” He was sounding more and more like a tour guide working from a prepared lecture, adding to the surreality. “The contract to convert the complex to hold SHEVA children was let out to CGA and Nortent, and they finished their work in nine months, a record. Four new dorms were erected a hundred yards east of the maximum security building, which was first constructed in 1949. The old hospital and farm buildings were made into research and clinical facilities. The business training building was converted into a nursery, and now it’s an education center. The four-hundred-bed special offenders compound now holds our mentally ill and developmentally disabled. We call it our Special Treatment Facility. It’s the only one in the state.”

“How many children are kept there?” Dicken asked.

“Three hundred and seven,” Trask said.

“They were more isolated,” Middleton said.

“Dr. Jurie or Dr. Pickman can tell you more about that,” Trask said. For the first time, his pleasant demeanor flickered. “Although…”

“I haven’t seen them,” Middleton said.

“Someone told me they left early this morning,” DeWitt said. “Perhaps to get supplies,” she added hopefully.

“Well.” Trask’s Adam’s apple bobbed like a swallowed walnut and he shook his head with a waxy kind of concern. “As of yesterday, the school housed a total of five thousand four hundred children.” He stole a quick look at his watch. “We simply don’t have what we need.” He escorted them to the west end of the building, and then down a wide connecting corridor lined with old refrigerators. The old white boxes were sealed with black and yellow tape. Empty equipment carts and stacked steel trays littered the passageway. The air was redolent of Pine-Sol.

DeWitt walked beside Dicken like a shipwrecked passenger hoping for a scrap of wood. “They use the Pine-Sol to disrupt scenting and frithing,” she said in an undertone. Frithing was a way SHEVA children drew scent into their mouths. They lifted their upper lips and sucked air through their teeth with a faint hiss. The air passed over their vomeronasal organs, glands for detecting pheromones far more sensitive than those found in their parents. “The security and many of the staff wear nose plugs.”

“That’s pretty standard in the schools,” Middleton said to Dicken, with a fleeting look at Augustine. She opened a battered steel storage cabinet and pulled out scrub uniforms and surgical masks. “So far, thank God, none of the staff has gotten sick.”

Dicken and Augustine put the uniforms on over their street clothes, strapped on the masks, and slipped their hands into the sterile gloves. They paused as an older man, in his late sixties or early seventies, stooped and eagle-nosed, pushed through the swinging doors at the end of the hall.

“Here’s Dr. Kelson now,” Trask said, his back stiffening.

Kelson wore a surgical gown and cap, but the gown hung on him, straps loose, and his hands were bare. He approached Augustine, gave him a brusque nod, then turned to Middleton. “Gloves,” he demanded. Middleton reached into the locker and handed him a pair of examination gloves. Kelson snapped them on and held them up for inspection. “No go with Department of Health. I asked for a NuTest, antivirals, hydration kits. Not available, they claimed. Hell, I know they have what we need! They’re just holding on to them in case this breaks loose.”

“It will not break loose,” Trask said, his smile faltering.

“Did Trask tell you about our shortage?” Kelson inquired of Augustine.

“We understand it’s a crisis,” Augustine said.

“It’s goddamned murder !” Kelson roared. DeWitt jumped. “Three months ago, state Emergency Action officials stripped us of more than half of our medical equipment and drugs. Our entire emergency supply was looted. We have ‘healthy children,’ they told us. The supplies could be better used elsewhere. Trask did nothing to stop them.”

“I would disagree with that characterization,” Trask said. “There was nothing I could do.”

“Last ditch effort, I took a truck into town,” Kelson continued. “I smeared mud on the doors and the license plates but they knew. Dayton General told me to stay the hell away. I got nothing. So I came back and slipped in through the Miller’s Road entrance. Now even that is blocked.” Kelson waved his hand, drunk with exhaustion, and turned his heartsick, skim-milk blue eyes on Dicken. “Who are you?”