Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
There are only pieces, flashes of images that don’t seem to fit any real pattern. Faces, cherry blossoms, lab equipment, Gene.
I blink. Gene. I remember him. I’ve never been able to put a name to his face, but it just came to me. He’d been the custodian at the university where I worked. Then he came to DC with us. After that … was he at the lab with me? My memory goes murky. Frustration wells when my headache threatens to return.
Fatima. I think about her instead. I know she was with us in DC. She’d been Juno’s aide ever since she won the governorship. Now she’s a vampire, Gregor’s vampire. Foreboding lodges in my gut, my mind spinning out a million theories in a single second. The most obvious is that Fatima was somehow in on it all along. Did she push Juno to make the deal with Gregor? She’d been in the meetings. Everywhere Juno went, Fatima was always there. Even more so than Candice, who’d taken more of a quiet role once Fatima showed up.
“With her iPad and all her political savvy.” Candice rolls her eyes.
“Hang on, I thought you liked Fatima?” I chew through a particularly tough piece of steak, the meat more like boot leather than food.
“I do.” Candice cuts her meat in neat squares. “I guess she just makes me feel old, and I get crabby about it, all right?” She wrinkles her nose as Vince walks in while giving orders into his radio. “Can you cut that shit out at the dinner table?” she snaps.
“—perimeter sweep before it gets full dark. Out.” He pockets the radio and grabs his plate. “Grumpy this evening,” he remarks and serves himself a hockey puck piece of steak.
“I’m not grumpy.” Candice cuts her meat into even smaller pieces with a vicious sawing motion. “I’m just a little crabby.”
“She’s worried she can’t keep up with all the new technology,” I translate.
Vince scoffs and sits down, then flips his tie over his shoulder. “What new technology? Everything’s shut down. We’re working with 20th century tech.” He pats the radio in his pocket. “My cell has a signal for maybe five minutes of every hour, and the power is getting more questionable.” He bites a hunk from his steak and chews as Candice glares at him. After a big swallow, he adds, “Look, you aren’t behind is all I’m saying.”
“Fatima is always flitting around and acting like Juno can’t wipe her ass unless it’s in her separate calendar.” Candice makes a childish face, one distinctly at odds with her wrinkles and gray hair. “A separate calendar. Can you believe that? I’ve kept Juno’s calendar for years. Never had an issue.”
“What’s that saying, ‘more hands make less work’ or something like that?” Vince offers.
“Hi everyone.” Fatima strides in, a somewhat stiff smile on her face.
Shit, she must’ve been listening. “How are you today?” I ask a little too brightly.
“All good. Juno should be down in a minute. She’s just finishing up a call with Washington about the Houston situation.”
“The food bank assault?” Vince scowls. “I thought they had that handled with additional National Guard.”
“Juno thought so, too.” Fatima serves herself from the veggie trays. “But apparently a lot of the angry locals are ridiculously well-armed. They need more troops to keep the distribution area safe for civilians.”
“Was that call on the calendar?” Candice asks pertly.
I give her a death glare, but she completely ignores me.
“It was on both calendars, yes.” Fatima says evenly as she takes her seat. “I added it this morning.”
A tense silence settles over the room, only the sounds of chewing and the occasional grunt from Vince interrupting the stalemate.
“Anyone want to hear a joke?” I blurt.
Candice gives me the stink eye. “Professor, maybe you should sit this one out.”
“I’d love to hear a joke.” Fatima smiles.
I clear my throat. “What did the famous auctioneer’s tombstone say?”
Vince and Candice exchange a puzzled glance.
“What?” Fatima asks.
“Going, Going, Gone!” I slam my hand on the table as if it’s a gavel.
Candice snorts a laugh.
“Is this what passes for jokes in these rough times?” Vince gives me half a smile as Fatima giggles.
The tension eases.
“Is that gallows humor? That’s what they call that, isn’t it Professor?” Candice asks.
“Shitty humor. Can’t believe they think you’re a genius around here.” Vince shakes his head, a twinkle in his eye as he ribs me.
We’re a family again, cobbled together before and after the plague arrived.
“Well fuck Washington, am I right?” Juno strides in, her presence lighting up the room. She stops and eyes us all suspiciously. “Why is everyone smiling?”
The memory comes and goes in a blink, but it hits me with the force of a gut punch. I curl into a ball, my journal forgotten as I revel in the memory, turning it over and inspecting it like a treasured, but rusty, coin. We were happy. The world was falling apart, but we were happy with each other, happy with what we had.