World-Mart (23 page)
“Will do,” the manager said.
“See you then.” Mrs. Conrad hung up, and Nadine quickly hung up her line. Virginia slipped back in as Nadine hurried back into the kitchen. Virginia washed the last of the pans, preparing for the stack of plates that would soon come down through the dumb waiter. Knowing it was best to mind her own business, she pretended not even to notice Nadine returning to the room. Nadine did not say anything,
to her
. She moved directly to the dumb waiter and tried to look busy as she waited for the breakfast dishes to come back down.
They
finally came
,
and the women silently worked together to get them moved and washed. They began to hand dry what they could when Mr. and Mrs. Conrad came walking in.
Mr. Conrad looked even older in the kitchen light, with graying hair and unsightly jowls framing his long face. He wore an expensive suit and hat, but fancy clothing was not enough to mask the worry imprinted deep across his face.
“Is there a problem, sir?” Nadine asked.
“We have to go to the office for a while,” he said
,
impatiently digging his designer facemask out of his pocket. “Mrs. Conrad wants you both in the basement until we get back.”
Nadine set down her towel, motioning for Virginia to do the same, and the two crossed the foyer to the door leading downstairs. As soon as they were both on the steps leading down, the door shut behind them and they could hear the click of the lock. Nadine turned on the dim light, and they both went down to the basement room.
“How often do they do this?” Virginia asked, the locked door digging up a touch of post-traumatic stress. She sat down on her cot, sweating despite the cold.
“They go out whenever there’s a big issue that requires them to meet with the Board, once or twice a week, and then they also leave for a couple of hours every Sunday to attend Faith-Corp’s weekly Sermon. You’ll get used to it,” Nadine said. “At least we both can have another cup of coffee.” She went to the kitchenette area and poured them each a second serving. “It’s not hot anymore, but it’s not completely cold yet, either.” She handed Virginia a mug before sitting down on her cot.
Virginia sipped at her coffee, unable to shake the anxiety she felt over their confinement. What if, by chance, a fire broke out upstairs? No one would be there to let her and Nadine out of the basement. They would be trapped. Virginia strained her mind to remember whether or not she had turned off the Conrads’ coffee pot.
Nadine noticed Virginia’s increasing anxiety and gave her a reassuring smile. “Enjoy your coffee. We’ll be out of here sooner than you think.” She savored her coffee, seemingly
unaffected
by their situation.
Virginia set down her coffee mug and curled up on her cot. She closed her eyes, hoping that she might find a way to sleep through whatever next few hours they would be down there.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Nadine said, pulling a couple of pins from her hair and quietly moving up the stairs. She listened through the door for a moment, to be sure that the Conrads were gone, and then started working on the lock.
Virginia sat up, suddenly not so sure how desperate she was for her freedom. “What are you doing?”
Nadine tripped the lock in less than thirty seconds, obviously having performed the act countless times in the past. “Come with me.”
“What if we get caught?”
“We won’t. Trust me!” Nadine hurried out.
Not really trusting the young woman, but too curious to stay behind, Virginia followed behind her. She entered the foyer and froze as Nadine began up the staircase. “Are you crazy?”
“They won’t be back for hours. The HD-1 virus has made another appearance, it seems, and Corporate is officially freaking out.” Nadine waited for Virginia to get to the top of the staircase. “Now for the real tour,” she said with a mischievous smile
as she
led Virginia to the Conrads’ closed bedroom door.
“What about all of the cameras?” Virginia asked, looking around and spotting two, then three that had likely caught them already in their act.
“I’ll reset the recorder as soon as we get to the control panel.”
The little dog began to bark,
pawing at
them from the other side
of the door
, and Nadine put her leg through the threshold to block the hyperactive animal as she opened
it
. “Be careful of the dog. If he gets out, it’ll take us an hour to get him back in here.”
Virginia had only seen a few dog
s
when she was younger. Corporate had passed a law decades ago against keeping private pets, as they sapped precious resources. Mr. and Mrs. Conrad didn’t seem too concerned with the law, however, and Virginia had to wonder how many other laws rich people were allowed to violate.
Virginia closed the door behind her, and the toy poodle bounced around her in a tiny fit, smelling her feet and barking at the unfamiliar scent.
“He’s harmless,” Nadine said.
Virginia ignored the dog, marveling at the beautifully furnished room. The bed’s immense headboard was made out of real wood, and layer upon layer of down and thick silk flooded over either side of the king-sized mattress. There was another painting on one wall, and several closed-circuit video screens on another. The Conrads could see every room in their house, as well as a view of the
basement door, the outside
gate
,
and the front and back porches, from their bed.
“Why all the hardware?” Virginia asked, already getting annoyed with the incessant barking.
“Mrs. Conrad is paranoid. She thinks the world is out to steal her precious collections of things,” Nadine said, a hint of disgust in her voice. “She doesn’t trust anyone.”
Nadine opened a door that connected the bedroom to an immense office. Virginia hurried in with her, and they got the door closed before the annoying little dog could follow them in.
Various system monitors, computers, and hand-held devices filled the room. The equipment all looked well maintained, and most of it was on. Nadine sat down at one of four desks in the room and logged onto the computer.
Virginia watched intently as Nadine opened an Internet Browser Window. “The Internet crashed thirty years ago!” she said, trying to figure out what Nadine was doing.
To Virginia’s surprise, a web page slowly loaded.
“This isn’t the Internet,” Nadine said. “Only three quadroplexes are connected.”
“What about everyone else?”
“I don’t think there is anyone else,” Nadine said.
Virginia gave Nadine a suspicious face. “Pardon?”
Nadine logged into the Conrads’ e-mail account, accessing newsletters that only members of Corporate were supposed to see. Nadine got up from the chair and offered it to Virginia. “Take a look.”
Virginia sat down, and Nadine showed her the basics of negotiating the database.
“How did you learn how to run all of this?” Virginia asked, looking over the various headlines, all arranged by date.
“I’ve worked in this house for a long time,” Nadine said, redirecting Virginia’s attention to the computer. She pointed to several decades-old newsletter headlines, which painted a very clear picture of the absolute destruction, all kept from the public, that had occurred nationwide. It seemed that, shortly after worldwide communications completely broke down, communications throughout the country had followed suit. The cause
of
the growing communications breakdown was due to more than just the change in weather patterns. In reality, only a small portion of the population still survived. The crazy weather, coupled with the waves of antibiotic resistant disease, had decimated nearly every continent.
Virginia read the headlines in disbelief, and then sat back, shaking her head. “Why is everyone being led to believe that the rest of the world is still out there if it isn’t?”
“It would be difficult to control the people if they were in hysterics over the actual state of the world,” Nadine said as a matter-of-fact. She commandeered the mouse and scrolled closer to the top of the page, to the more recent newsletters and correspondences. She opened a recent notice concerning the first HD-1 virus outbreak. Virginia read with a newfound interest. The notice, which was actually a personal letter written from one Corporate to the rest, detailed Medical-Corp’s preliminary report on the retrovirus. The report followed the first dozen initial infections, logging the length between infection time and deviant shift, keeping a tally of the
e
uthanasia deaths as if they were inventory adjustments.
“This is insane,” Virginia said, finishing the letter.
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Nadine pulled up a recent newsletter, sent from Medical-Corp’s top
r
epresentative:
Header: HD-1a Currently Under Development
Security Clearance: Red
Body Text: Preliminary tests have shown promise in the development of a new retrovirus based on HD-1. HD-1a specifically targets DNA altered by HD-1, causing cell death and eventual death of the host. Further tests need to be conducted, but there is the possibility that HD-1a could target germ-line deviants as well. HD-1a has shown so far to be virtually harmless to humans, causing mild flu-like symptoms in some.
Virginia finished reading the newsletter, remaining speechless for a minute or two afterward as she took in the severity of the situation.
“I wonder how many of us they plan on infecting?” Virginia finally asked.
“They can’t possibly want to get rid of all of us,” Nadine said. “We make up a quarter of the population . . . and
everyone else has
grown too adverse to manual labor. Someone has to keep rebuilding all that the weather continuously knocks down, you know.”
Virginia turned to look Nadine in the eyes, her face heavy with concern. “I sincerely hope you’re right.” She looked back at the headlines, considering her initial negative impressions of Nadine. Still feeling suspicious of her sudden sisterly behavior, however, she had to ask
,
“
W
hy are you showing me all of this?”
“You don’t find it interesting?”
“I find it very interesting.”
“So why wouldn’t I show you?”
Virginia smiled sheepishly. “I thought you hated me,” she said with a shrug.
“I’m your boss,” Nadine said, smiling back. “But right now, we’re both off-duty.”
GEORGE
moved slowly through the shuttle garage, exhausted but still determined. He wandered all night through the entire central area of the district, showing Virginia’s picture to anyone willing to loo
k
. His body had gone stiff from the cold and every joint in his body ached, but he kept moving. He began toward the Corp Education System’s garage just before dawn, when the once quiet, empty garages and halls began to fill with early morning weekend commuters.