After the Cure Page 5

Nella made her way back toward the entrance of the prison. She felt drained and uneasy, as if she'd forgotten something important or as if she had exhausted every possibility to an unsolvable problem. She groaned inwardly when she reached the heavy glass doors and saw that the sleet had changed over to snow and was already thick on the pavement. Nella hated this in between time of year. As if the old wheezing world couldn't decide whether to finally die or rally itself for one more spring.

  She pushed open the door and slipped into the slimy, chilled evening. Her car was the only one in visitor parking. It wasn't unusual. Most people were used to being alone now. Gas was reserved for critical purposes at least until the Farm could produce enough ethanol or the Cure spread far enough south to recover countries with oil fields. Nella doubted either would happen in her lifetime. Only the counsel for the defendants and herself would have vehicles here. The loneliness seeped in everywhere these days, part of the atmosphere and only rarely noticeable. Now, with the small circles of streetlight hovering over her and the extra silence of the snow, she felt it again, like a sudden stumble on a forgotten stair. Nella walked toward her car and suddenly realized that the vehicle had been cleared of snow. She smiled and looked around as if her helper would suddenly pop out. She drove home feeling a little better about the world.

  Her good mood lasted until she saw the envelope from the Department of Human Reproductive Services in her mail box. Nella swore under her breath, but didn't bother to open it. Instead, she dropped it on her kitchen table and went to call Sevita.

  The two had remained together after the first administration of the Cure. Sevita had been offered a position on the World News Broadcast as soon as her report with Dr. Rider had been aired, but she had refused the job. Sevita was drawn to the stories of the Cured as they looked for relatives or tried to come to terms with the violence they remembered committing. She documented the work of Nella's team for six years as they pushed farther and farther into the infection zones along with the military. As a result, both women had become best friends. Sevita had been selected to document the Plague Trial just months before Judge Hawkins had appointed Nella the chief psychiatric adviser.

  The phone only rang for a second before Sevita answered.

  "Guess what I got in the mail today?" said Nella, before they had even exchanged greetings.

  "You too huh? Seems our friendly neighborhood matchmakers have been busy. Our entire unit got them today."

  "What are you going to do? Have you told Chris yet?"

  Sevita sighed. "Yeah, she knows. She's excited. I think she sees it as the final blow in the marriage argument. She doesn't know I was going to ask her after the trial anyway."

  "Sure you were."

  "I was! I just wanted to have all this behind us. I don't want to remember the year our baby was born as the year the first public executions took place."

  "You don't know that's what will happen."

  "Come on Nella, I know you aren't that naive. Whether this Dr. Pazzo and his assistant are guilty or not doesn't really make much difference, does it? They were there. The survivors of the Plague think they've seen the worst. But you and I, we're the ones who know how much damage has really been done. You've talked with the Cured, been with them from the moment they realized the weight of what they had done. You know the suicide rates. You were the one that compiled the report. Once all that comes out in court, the world is not going to be able to let go. Maybe just being there is close enough to guilty."

  "Then what's the point of even having the trial Sevita? Why didn't the military just shoot them when they found them? They wouldn't have bothered appointing you to document it if we weren't going to try to have real justice."

  "We're just pretenses, you and I, to make it seem like a fair trial. Whatever you find, the trial will still move forward. Whatever I record will be rewritten. And Pazzo and Connelly will burn. I just hope for our sakes that they really are guilty."

  Nella was quiet. "I don't want to talk about it anymore," she said at last.

  "Neither do I. There's nothing you or I can do to change it. So come over for dinner. We'll talk about baby clothes and nursery designs with Christine. She'll be ecstatic. She brought home a case of beer from her last scav mission as part of her pay."

  "Mmm eight year old beer."

  Sevita laughed. "We have to drink it tonight, she wants to have the fertilization done this week."

  "You aren't going to adopt an orphan?"

  "No, Christine is set on the pregnancy. She says we all have a 'genetic responsibility' now. I think she's been reading too many DHRS pamphlets. But this is what she wants. And you know I can never resist it when she sets her heart on something. Come on, come over. I know you'll fall asleep over your notes without eating if you don't. No trial talk, I promise."

  "Okay," said Nella, grinning, "I'll be over in a few."

  Sevita and Christine had met during the worst part of the Plague, long before either knew Nella. Christine had been an EMT when the outbreak began. She found out quickly that she was immune to the December Plague, though her partner was not so lucky. So Christine drove her ambulance alone, ferrying the Infected to local hospitals until the military took over management and burned them all to the ground. After that, Christine ran a mobile triage out of her ambulance for those who had been bitten or injured. The world quickly emptied of sanity and Christine had to routinely defend herself both from Infected and desperate people. But she never thought about quitting. She kept her radio on at every hour and kept her ambulance clean, running and well-stocked when she had time. The military tolerated her, even supplied her with fuel and medical supplies but warned her that she was on her own. And that was just fine with Christine. But when she heard repeated distress calls from Sevita's office, she followed a military unit in to help. The entire building had been surrounded by Infected. But because it was one of the few remaining stations still capable of broadcasting, the military decided it was a worthwhile target to retake. It was a massacre. When they finally escaped, the building was overrun and most of the military unit had been eaten alive. Only four people remained, huddled in Christine's ambulance as they sped away. Sevita was one of them.

  Sevita had been wounded in several places trying to defend her coworkers. Christine had stopped driving her ambulance in order to care for the dying girl and eventually nursed her back to health. But Sevita clung to Chris long after she had healed, uncharacteristically afraid of the strange city and mistrusting of its thinly manned safety barriers. Nella never understood how two such opposite people could be so madly in love with each other, but there it was. They'd been inseparable as long as she had known them- since Sevita's arrival in the City. Though Sevita regained her bold, friendly nature, neither she nor Christine ever felt the need to look any farther for their happiness.

  Most of the remaining humans had kept to themselves after the Cure. Everyone had witnessed or participated in the death of almost every person that they knew. Even eight years after the Plague, almost no one had any real urge to build new ties. Especially after the old ones had been so brutally broken. In the beginning, people had avoided each other as much as possible for their own safety. Now though, it had become habit. Love like Sevita and Chris had just didn't happen anymore. Because of her work, Nella had more contact with other people than was the norm. But Nella didn't have many friends, or even very many colleagues. Sevita and Chris were her new family and she spent almost every evening walking to or from their small apartment.

  Warm and slightly buzzed on skunky beer, Nella listened with her eyes half closed as the couple had the same good natured argument that they had for years.

  "You have a fear of commitment. Tell her Nella."

  Sevita scowled. "No I don't. You are just having a reaction to the disaster around us. It's natural. People after the Black Death bred like rabbits. And again after the last world war. I just want to make
sure this isn't some short term shack up. You'll get cold feet in six months, I know it."

  Chris smacked Sevita lightly on the knee. "It's been eight years!"

  Nella snorted and almost dropped her beer.

  "What are you laughing at?" grumbled Sevita, "You're supposed to be on my side. You should be telling Christine that she's just bowing to peer pressure and she should strive to make up her own mind."

  "Oh no," laughed Nella, "I know better than to get in the middle of this mess. I'm going to get dessert while you two duke it out." She winked at Sevita and went into the tiny kitchen. Nella pulled out Sevita's enamel canister. It still smelled warm and sweet like the tea it had held so long ago. Now it was the temporary home for Christine's engagement ring. Nella had known it was there for years, a warm sparking star waiting for Sevita to grow some courage. Nella smiled. She remembered the day Sevita had bought it. The two of them had stood in front of the scavenger's shop window and debated for hours. Nella placed it on the plate next to Christine's apple crisp. She sighed. It should have been chocolate cake and champagne, not fruit jumble and stale beer. But Nella had checked, both had been far, far out of reach. She wondered if any of them would ever taste chocolate again. It didn't matter, of course, she decided. She looked around the tiny kitchen, its warm yellow paint and cluttered cupboards peeking through pictures and tiny glittering ornaments that Christine collected like a magpie. This place pushed out the empty world. How much this little home would change in the next year! Nella could almost forgive the DHRS for forcing people into parenthood if it could put the world back together like this.

  "Garcon!" called Sevita, laughing.

  "Oh! Coming!" yelled Nella, picking up the dessert tray.

  The Maintenance Man At the End of the World