Gabriel’s grey eyes were intent and filled with both hope and worry. “Really?”
“Really.” Gareth grinned. “Frankly, I think the stuff you’re studying is absolutely beautiful. I can tell that you think so, too.”
Gabriel laughed, and a blush rose into his cheeks. “Why does no one else think so?”
“Because your ideas are quite different, Gabriel. You’re a unique kid. Special. I have a pretty darn good feeling that you’re going to be somebody very important someday.”
“Huh? What about me is so special?”
“Your mind, that’s what! You have an amazing mind, Gabriel. And someday, mark my words, that mind? It’s going to change the world.”
Chapter 9:
Residual
Spring 2018
Though the onset of the Black Virus was unexpected, Gabriel wasn’t surprised by the aftermath. He’d seen it all before, back during the AIDS epidemic in the ’80s. If there was one thing that the bureaucrats knew how to do, it was cover their asses.
On the news that morning, he had seen headlines about foreign relations, an important new bill in Congress, and another spike in the national debt. They had shown nothing about the new virus, and his intuition told him that the government was carefully keeping the news from going viral to avoid a nationwide panic.
Five days had passed since John Morris had flipped out in the lobby. The nurses were saying nothing, and they avoided answering Gabriel’s questions. Men in black suits came into the building, and the staff was forced to sign a confidentiality agreement, probably under threat of lawsuit, loss of licensure, and a long list of other consequences if a leak occurred. From what he could gather, the document stated that John Morris’s illness would be referred to as a case of influenza.
A few people had already quit. Even so, they’d still signed the forms. They had to.
Four days ago, the government sent in its top specialists. They disguised themselves as everyday doctors so that the residents wouldn’t be alarmed, but Gabriel could spot those young government immunologists, virologists, and pathologists, fresh out of school and eager to prove themselves, from a mile away. They took blood and tissue samples and sent them back to their labs.
After that, the doctors stopped trying to cure John Morris. The virus had proven stubbornly resistant to antibiotics, time, prayer, and everything else the doctors had thrown at it. Morris was confined to his room, with no visits from anyone but the nursing staff or approved doctors. The nurses were ordered to load him up with morphine, and that was the extent of the treatment. Clearly, the government had decided that there was nothing they could do for John Morris except keep him away from others.
Gabriel knew what they were thinking. Morris was old, so he was going to die soon, anyway. There was no sense wasting time, money, and resources on a person like that. That line of reasoning disgusted him to no end, but he knew how the system worked. A cover-up was always preferable to mass panic. Everyone liked to keep their hands clean.
Unfortunately, the spread had already begun. Yesterday morning, another resident had been hit with the virus—Rebecca Holzweiss, of West Wing. She and John Morris often sat together in the lobby, sometimes holding hands, so Gabriel didn’t find her infection too surprising. She was now also quarantined in her room, for all the good that accomplished.
Gabriel shook his head. In a building where the majority of the residents wandered the halls from sunrise to sunset—touching the same items, using the same silverware, and sometimes even sharing the same bathrooms—he highly doubted the virus could be contained.
They kept Morris’s room guarded, but even guards needed to take a break, if only for emergency bathroom trips. Gabriel had been standing at the corner of the hallway, ostensibly staring at a yellow birdfeeder outside the window but actually keeping an eye on Morris’s door. When the nurse on duty, Dana Kleznowski, hurried out of the room, he stayed still and gazed forward in a fake glassy-eyed stupor. Dana raced past him and cut left down the hallway, and the bathroom door clicked shut behind her.
As soon as she disappeared behind the door, Gabriel shuffled down the hall to Morris’s room. He cracked open the door and cautiously peered inside. The lights were off, and the odors of rubbing alcohol, blood, and decay wafted out.
Morris lay in the bed, hooked up to an IV and a feeding tube. A catheter bag dangled beside the mattress. The disgusting maze of black veins covering his skin occasionally throbbed, and every time it did, Morris let out a short, gasping breath that sounded like rocky sand passing through a metal pipe. But the eyes–those horrifying, satanic-looking balls of coal—were the worst part. Whenever Morris blinked, his eyeballs slithered.
“Hey, Detective!” Dana Kleznowski shouted down the hall.
Gabriel jumped a little and stepped back from the door. Dana was a cute twenty-seven-year-old LPN with obsessive-compulsive nail-biting habits, a willowy figure, and what might be anemia. She ran over and closed the door. Her round freckled face was flushed red.
“Dude.” She touched his shoulder. “It’s nice to see ya, but what are you doing up on North?”
He shrugged. “Observing.”
“Um, yeah. You know that we’re not supposed to let anyone near that poor guy’s room, right? And I don’t want you getting infected with that crap, too.”
“Understandable. I’ll go, then.”
He retreated back to South Wing. He tried to keep his feet on solid ground while his mind reached up to the clouds. He had to remain balanced, fair, and logical. He had plenty of thinking to do.
Chapter 10:
Coils
“You were right,” Gabriel said.
The lights were dimmed in Bright New Day’s front lobby. Gabriel was the only person in the room, and he stood before one of the bay windows, staring at the tumbling waves of the inaccessible beach below.
“Good,” the slug said. “If you don’t mind me saying so, it’s about time you came around to the truth.”
Gabriel rested his forehead on the cool glass, right next to where the leopard-printed slug had affixed itself. The half-moon painted a radiant white line across the ocean. Clouds threatened to overtake the moon, but its colorless light burned through them.
“Gabriel?” The slug wriggled its black antennas.
Gabriel glanced at it. While he had been staring out the window, the slug had been joined by a small group of friends, six of them, all different colors and sizes. Gabriel considered getting a nurse and testing to see if other people saw or heard the slugs, but he decided that would be too risky. Oh, poor Mr. Schist. You’re hallucinating? Maybe we should book you a room on Level Five.
“Is he even listening?” an albino slug whispered, shaking its white faceless head.
“Oh, he always listens,” Leopard Print replied. “He just doesn’t always reply. Isn’t that correct, Gabriel?”
“I swear, he’s not listening.”
