Adopted Son Read online

  As she feared and expected, the top step contained a large pile of blankets, gently wriggling. She knelt down to pick up the bundle. She was getting older, and her back wasn’t what it used to be, so she had a bit of trouble getting back up with the babe in her arms, but she managed, she always managed. She took the child off the damp, tile floor of the entryway and brought it through the darkened living room to the bright warmth of the kitchen. She lay the child on the table and turned off the stove. Her milk had almost boiled over. Once that was accomplished she returned to the pile of blankets. She knew what she would find inside. She undid the top few fold and revealed the baby’s head. Its huge, bug-like eyes were closed, but it twisted fitfully in its sleep. She looked around for the obligatory note from the mother, but there was none in this case. “Well, at least they bothered to give the child a blanket,” she thought.

  At that moment a creaking could be heard coming down the stairs. It quickened its pace when it reached the point where one could see that the lights were on in the kitchen. A few seconds after that, the form of Father Blythe could be seen entering the room.

  “Sister, I thought I heard a knocking. It’s another child isn’t it?” the father said dejectedly. While he was happy to care for any child in this world, he pitied the mother, pitied the fact that anyone would willingly give up such a gift from God. He would pray that the woman would have the strength to live with her decision. The fact that the orphanage’s resources would have to be stretched further to accommodate this new resident didn’t cross his mind. They always managed.

  “Yes Father,” responded the Sister. He moved towards the child.

  “HS?”

  “Well, duh,” she responded. He looked down upon the child, putting his hand upon the girl’s oversized, bald head. The child responded by fidgeting around and freeing one arm from the swaddling. Father Blythe put his finger out, which the baby grabbed tightly before returning to sleep. Sister Mary Helen returned to the stove to finish her cooking. “I have some warm milk Father, if you’d like some.”

  “No thank you sister, that’ll put me right to sleep. I’ve got to find a place for this little one before I go to bed.”

  “This is the seventh HS child we’ve gotten in the last two months. It seems to be a trend doesn’t it Father?”

  “People are scared of the unknown Sister. They don’t understand what is happening to them. They look at these kids and they just see ‘monster.’ There has been so much on the news about it. It is no wonder that they choose not to deal with it.”

  A tiny voice came from the foot of the stairs. “Am I a monster Father Blythe?” said the voice. A face came into view. A little boy. He was wearing yellow pajamas and dragging a stuffed rabbit by one ear. His oversized, bald head was covered by a rather ridiculous-looking purple nightcap. As silly as it was, he never took it off. The Sister had made it for him.

  “No, you’re not a monster Franklin. But you should be asleep.”

  “I’m sorry Father. I heard the noise down here. I came to see.” He waddled across the kitchen, the plastic feet of his pajamas scuffling across the linoleum floor. He climbed up on one of the chairs as one would mount a horse. He stood on the seat and peered into the blankets. “Another one like me,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Yes Franklin, it seems as if you have a new baby sister.” Franklin poked at the child with his long, bony finger, perhaps to assure himself that the little thing on the table was actually alive.

  “What’s her name?” said the boy.

  “You can look at the baby in the morning Franklin, you should be in bed now. It’s late.”

  “Yes Father,” the child said. The priest picked Franklin up and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He turned to the nun. “I’ll be back in a minute Sister,” he said as he carried Franklin back upstairs to the bedrooms.

  As the pair was walking out of sight, the bouncing form of Franklin lay half limply across Father Blythe’s shoulder. The cloth rabbit looked increasingly distressed as it bobbed up and down. Franklin remained focused on the Sister as he was leaving. “Sister,” he said, “Are you going to make this little girl a hat like mine?”

  The Sister just smiled wistfully. She sat down in the chair that Franklin had been standing on, and took her first sip of warm milk.

  20 miles north of Thule Air Force Base, Greenland.

  The ice was too frozen here for the corer to go in smoothly. Dr. Collins was pounding on the top of the device with a rubber mallet, straining to get the thing to go in the required six inches into the snowdrift. Trying to grasp the hammer while wearing thick mittens was difficult, and it took her quite a while to even get it in halfway. One of the marine guards assigned to the project saw her struggles, and being the gentleman he was, came to help. While she held the corer steady with both hands he began stomping on the thing with his big, black boot. That seemed to do the trick, and soon it was in the full six inches. The fact that the two were able to act together was surprising, since the wind and snow were blowing hard enough here to make hearing each other’s conversation impossible. They both had to rely on just knowing what the other wanted.

  Nancy grabbed the metal tube and pulled it from the ice. It was easier to get it free than to get it in. It slid out, containing a perfect core of stratified ice. She took the sample and placed it in a plastic bag that had a little white label on it. Then the bag went into a cooler. The marine guard and the biologist then carried the cooler back to the helicopter to wait for a suitable break in the weather to take off, fly another few miles, and take more samples.

  The next day, Nancy sat in her laboratory in the Air Force Base. It wasn’t much of a laboratory really, it was more like a disused office. There wasn’t much furniture, just an old desk and a chair that flaked tan paint when you sat on it. It was filled with boxes though, boxes that Nancy had brought with her. Most contained equipment of various types. She had tried to make her lab as mobile as possible, but it still weighed almost a half a ton. On the desk, and all over the floor, lay reagents and diagnostic equipment. Sequencers, antibody stocks, other obscure scientific items she needed to do her job. In one corner sat the cooler containing the samples. Nancy had worked for most of the morning setting things up and running diagnostic tests and control samples. She was now ready to begin. It was cold in the office, partly because it was, after all, in Greenland, but also because the ice cores needed to be kept frozen. She walked over the to cooler and pulled out the first sample. It was labeled with the GPS coordinates of where it was taken, N77 30’ W065 30’. It also had the vague and pointless statements, ‘Ice Core Sample,’ and ‘keep below freezing.’

  Nancy put on her rubber gloves and took the core out of the bag. She placed it on a cutting board at the end of the table. She carefully removed the outer, plastic sleeve. This left a cylinder of pure snow. With a large, sharp pick Nancy broke the sample into one inch segments, and placed each segment in a plastic cup. The cups were sequentially labeled 0” to 5”. The top segment she broke into four quarter inch segments, each getting its own cup. The cups were sealed. She repeated the process with a number of other cores. Once that was done it was time for some coffee. After all that work trying to keep them frozen, now the ice needed a chance to melt.

  After her short break Nancy returned to the solitary room. She took each sample in turn and drew off 10ml of water. These samples would go through several processing steps. First, they would be sonically shocked in order to break up any virus particles that may be inside. Then the samples were run through a PCR machine. This machine looked for a specific DNA sequence, and if it found it, would exponentially increase the amount of it in the sample. This allows for the third part of the test. The samples are examined using certain immunoprobes to test for the specific DNA sequence. The entire experiment takes about five hours to do, not including control samples. The 50’s vintage Air Force clock on the wall loudly ticked off the seconds as Nancy poured and measured, transferred and exami
ned.

  It was late when she had finished her work with the samples. She looked at the results on the printed readout. She picked up the phone to call Dr. Mensen, but then thought the better of it. There was nothing new to tell him, no special insight that would change their theories. The data that came out matched the data that Nancy had collected in Tierra del Fuego, that she had collected in American Samoa, that she had collected in Macau. The test for the HS virus showed that there was no virus in the core sample at the lower depths. However the samples on the top surface were positive. That meant that whatever this virus was, it had not be around very long. It hadn’t been deposited on the ice until about five years ago. Then inexplicably it shows up. It shows up worldwide. However this virus came about, it didn’t seem to exist five years ago, then all of a sudden, it was airborne and it was everywhere. Nancy put away her equipment. She still had some more cores to do tomorrow. If she hurried though she might still get to the base cafeteria before it closed for the night.

  11 months after Ray Johnston denied having aspirations for a Senate seat. State House, Albany, NY

  Albany is never a warm place, especially not in March, but they were waiting just the same. They stood on the cold, beige steps of the State House and they waited. All sorts of people waited. Some were from the news media and were getting paid to be here, but many weren’t. They came from all walks of life. Some had come all the way from Buffalo to see the ceremony. They didn’t have to really. It would be all over the evening news, of course. But they came and they waited. They waited because they wanted hope. They waited because they felt the oppressive weight of history falling down upon them and they wanted to catch a glimpse of the one person in the country that they felt could be their salvation.

  “Let them wait,” Ray thought as he stood in the antechamber. He looked down the hundred steps that connected the doors of the Statehouse to the rest of the world. There were banners and signs scattered throughout the audience. Some were the ones that his campaign staff had printed up, Ray’s smiling face on a field of blue. There were stars surrounding him like a halo. It said in solid-looking print: “Vote Ray Johnston, A Real American.” But Ray was surprised to see a bunch of other signs as well, some hand-painted on old bedsheets. It was like a sporting event out there. The signs said all sorts of things. Most were encouraging. “We’re with you Senator!” “Together We’ll Beat the Virus.” A few signs were taken from soundbites from his campaign speeches. One sign, near the back disturbed him a little. It showed an alien head surrounded by a big red ‘No’ symbol. Underneath were the words, “Kill the Invaders!” Ray knew that his campaign had brought out some extremists, but he hoped that they wouldn’t show up in large enough numbers to ruin his inauguration.

  Ray stood and waited in the antechamber. The doors were opened, and some people started out down the steps. The governor of New York went first, followed by the Chief Justice of the State Court and a few hangers on. Senator Walker stepped out onto the stairs. He had come to show his support for Ray and his agenda. As soon as the doors were opened, a cheer rose from the crowd. They were expecting Ray himself. The cheer died down as the doors were closed again. Ray went over the speech that was prepared for him. A few makeup people finished combing his hair and brushing his face with powder. A band began to play a suitably patriotic theme. That was his cue. He looked at his makeup guy, “How does he look?” said the campaign manager. The man responded with a ‘thumbs up’ sign. The doors of the Statehouse were opened again. Ray cleared his throat once, and stepped onto the top stairs to cheers so loud that they drowned out the band.

  He made his way to the podium, which was located about halfway down the steps. Somewhere, a button was pushed and a video screen that had been affixed to the wall of the statehouse sprang to life. Patriotic music played in the background as a montage of still photographs began to flash across the screen. Some were pictures of typical New Yorkers going about typical New York business. Others were shots of Ray on the campaign trail; kissing babies, shaking hands, boarding airplanes. The video culminated in a few shots of Ray smiling wildly on Election Day as red, white, and blue balloons fell onto his head. The last image was of Ray standing in a long line of new senators taking the oath of office at the Capitol.

  Of course, Ray himself wasn’t watching. He had seen the tape beforehand. He had even given it his ‘approval’ whatever that means. His campaign manager really made all the decisions. His approval meant nothing. It was quite an embarrassing and self-indulgent display, not the sort of thing that Ray wanted at all. In fact, spectacles like this were part of the reason that Ray decided to run for office in the first place. He wanted to replace the spectacle of politics with the work ethic of someone who was prepared to get the job done. He found himself blushing slightly and smiling quite uncontrollably at the movie as it reached his crescendo. But he got a grip on himself, coughed a few times, and began speaking just as the video faded to black.

  “People of New York,” he began, reading from the teleprompter, “Let me first express my sincere gratitude to you for giving me the chance to serve you as your newest Senator!” A cheer came up from the audience. Ray waited for it to die down before continuing. “You should be congratulated. Congratulated for choosing message over flash, for choosing substance over style.” More cheering. “I have never claimed to be a politician. I never wanted public office. I just wanted to serve my country in the best way I could. For years that service was in the form of a low-level civil servant. I tried to make a difference instead of making money; working on getting to the root problems we face, instead of working on getting promoted. I was just like all of you out there. I was just a guy trying to get by and do his part. But the system failed me. The system failed us! Those bureaucrats in Washington faced a threat that they couldn’t even comprehend, nevermind fight against. They put me in a position where I had to choose between my country and my government. And I’m sure that you’ll all agree with me when I say that it is our country that is more important!” Ray took a second to sip some water. In the cold March air it was almost frozen. He wished for something hot instead.

  “So I did the only thing that I could do. I knew that I had to change the government. I had to make those at the top responsible for their decisions. I couldn’t do that from where I was, so I risked it all. I never intended to run for office. I don’t have the silk suits, I don’t have the bright white teeth, I don’t have the ability to stand up in front of a crowd of working men and women and tell them lies and platitudes with a straight face. But you, the people of New York, have spoken. You have welcomed me into your arms. You have sent a message to those professional politicians that we will no longer stand for their pandering to the media and special interest groups. Today is the start of a new era! An era in which your government works for YOU! An era in which the phrase ‘for the people’ is not lost when the founding fathers’ names are invoked. An era in which we can once again rely on government to look after our interests, and to protect us from threats domestic, international, and extra-terrestrial!”

  The crowd noise became so loud that Ray couldn’t be heard anymore, even with the PA system. He looked at the teleprompter, it said calmly ‘wait for crowd noise to subside.’ The speechwriter was good, he knew exactly when the crowd would react. He should be good, he cost enough money. Ray cleared his throat again, just like the vocal coach had taught him, rubbed the tip of his nose with his leather glove, and continued.

  “Yes my friends, I say domestic, international, and ALIEN!” Another roar from the crowd, but smaller this time. “We have a problem in this country. The HS virus. It is my pledge to you that I will work as hard as I’ve ever worked to bring this issue to the forefront of American legislation. I promise you now, as I’ve promised you all down the campaign trail, that I will get funding for research into this horrible disease. We will find a cure for this plague, we will arrest its spread, and we will reverse its effects on our children. This must happen now. We must di
vert funding from bloated government programs in order to combat this thing. I’ve said all along that I believe the HS virus to be the largest, most insidious threat to humanity that we’ve ever had to face. But I am sure that we will rise to the challenge. You’ve taken the first step. You sent a message to the government that this is important. Now it’s up to me. I’ll take up the ball from here. I hold here in my hand, no less than fourteen bills that I am ready to submit to vote on the very first day of the new congressional session. I’m not going to wait until I get a feel for the place. I am not going to defer to some old coot because he has a few years more experience. No way! I’m going to take the message of the people of New York and ram it down those congressional throats until everything that can be done, every resource that the federal government can direct at this problem, is properly tasked and funded. We live in a great country. We have tremendous resources at our disposal. We can combat this threat, we can defeat this disease, we can triumph in the face of adversity. We CAN and we WILL! And I want to thank you for putting your trust in me, for allowing me the honor of leading the fight in your name. I know that in my heart I’ll always be just a low-level civil servant trying to serve his country in the best way he can. You’ve given me the opportunity, now I only hope that I can live up to your expectations. Thank you again New York!” Ray raised his balled fist over his head. The crowd cheered as the speech came to a close. Some people in the front pushed against the police barriers, trying to get a little closer to the man they believed to be their savior. Some, who weren’t close enough to the barriers, chose to just mimic the Senator’s raised fist gesture. The people were still cheering as Ray walked back up the statehouse steps.