Immunity Index by Sue Burke (best fiction books of all time txt) 📗

She called Old Man Tito to celebrate. “Hey, I just got a battlefield promotion. I’m now regional manager for as long as the company lets me, or until we all keel over from the epidemic. We’re still commandeered. I’m the regional commando now.”

“Good for you, girl! What does the government want from us?”

“Transportation, I suppose. We’re a transportation company. We get people and goods from place to place—fast, safe, and efficient—with outstanding customer service.” That was the corporate mission statement.

“Then that’s what they’ll get.”

Berenike hoped so. No one deserved to cough up blood until they died. But she’d been exposed to the killer cold. She might be sick right now. Well, she’d die with her boots on. But she still felt suspiciously well. It struck suddenly, right?

Someone was banging on the door. Berenike wasn’t about to open it without checking who it was and what they wanted. She wondered if the window glass was bulletproof. Probably not.

CHAPTER6

Irene knelt and put a hand on Will’s shoulder as he lay collapsed on the ground, sobbing. He’d never seemed strong emotionally, and now … Well, Irene might react the same if her mother died. Or maybe not. She’d been able to carry on after she learned that Mamá had been arrested. Peng had always told her that he’d built her to be strong.

Nimkii growled and raised his trunk, sniffing for danger. He knew something was wrong. She had to calm Will down, or at least get him into the house before Nimkii began to act out.

“Let’s get you inside.”

He didn’t respond.

“Should we call your mother? Your pastor?” They attended an electronic church, but she was pretty sure it had staff that could talk to people.

He sat up and rocked back and forth. “Mom. I gotta tell Mom.”

“Yes, you should.” She offered him an arm to help him stand up, but he ignored her, lurched to his feet, and stumbled to the house. She followed him. She needed to find those eye drops. She searched the first floor as discreetly as she could while he fumbled with his phone, still ignoring her. No eye drops in sight. She climbed the stairs, trying to act as if she were going to her room under the eaves and instead planning to inspect the second-floor hallway. If she had to, she’d go into the bedroom where Alan was.

A glint of a tiny white bottle with an orange label caught her eye. There it was lying next to a baseboard—as if he’d left the bedroom and thrown it against a wall. She read the instructions. One drop was supposed to go into each eye. She looked up at the ceiling, pulled down her lower lid, and didn’t blink for sixty seconds. The drop stung and felt cold. After a minute, she sniffed, and the taste reached the back of her mouth: cucumberlike, of all things. She repeated it with the other eye, then took the bottle with her to leave in the kitchen where it could be easily found. There was enough inside for Ruby and Will.

Would they have shared with me? Maybe not. They didn’t like Nimkii or her. But she’d encourage them to use the drops when she could. She wasn’t going to be like them.

She walked downstairs. Will was beating his fists on the wall so hard he was going to hurt himself.

“Will,” she said softly, “what did your mother say? Did you talk to her?”

“You go get her.” A gob of mucus dripped from his nose. “I’m not going to leave Dad alone. You go.”

She could see the prison up close! Although, she thought bitterly, if he had left, she would have been there and Alan wouldn’t have been alone—but she didn’t count.

“Where is she?” Irene said. “I don’t know where she works.”

He turned and hit the sofa so hard that it tipped over, then he kicked it. She backed away. “The car has it. Berry Farm. Go get her!”

“I’ll go right now.” She was glad to have an excuse to leave.

She glanced at Nimkii as she ran out the back door to the truck. He was pacing around his pen, and eventually he would pass the broken part of the fence. Stay calm, pedazo. Please. I’ll be back soon—if everything went well. After that …

“Berry Farm,” she told the truck’s controls, and during the short trip, she rehearsed ways to act innocent and brainless when she arrived. She expected a hostile reception. The truck turned in to the Berry Farm driveway and parked itself in a gravel-covered area close to the road. She prepared to step out and find someone to naively ask about Ruby, but a burly man ran toward her. He wore a heavy black jacket despite the warm morning, and he pointed a rifle at her.

After a moment frozen in shock, she raised her arms. I should have expected weapons.

He studied her through a visor, standing taut, his rifle aimed right at her. “Why are you here?” He wore a surgical face mask under the visor-screen. Did he expect contagion?

“I’m here to see Ruby Hobbard. Her husband just died. I was sent by her family.”

He kept the gun pointed at her. “Stay in your truck! Don’t move. Your name?”

“Irene Ruiz. I work at the farm with the mammoth, Prairie Orchid Farm.”

He looked at something on his visor. She tried to act surprised and scared—that was easy, since she was scared—and kept her hands up. This is a prison. No dairy farm shoots visitors. As much as she could without seeming nosy, she looked around. Every detail might be important to know if she could find someone to tell it to. The big, barnlike building had security cameras under the eaves, the kind that could look in any direction. It had two entrances that she could see, a double-width door that rolled horizontally on a track like a livestock barn, and a human-width door next to it. Around the area