Chapter 15

Orval picked up his com and attempted to contact Isabella. He was standing outside, in front of his luxurious Philadelphia residence, looking worriedly up at the pre-dawn sky. For the fourth time, the dreaded black circular entity had appeared overhead, still small, but growing and already plainly visible to the naked eye. Despite the early hour, loud cries of despair were being heard, as the residents of the Philadelphia sphere of influence were quite well aware of what was almost certain to follow. A few individuals were out running aimlessly through the streets, in full panic mode, several hours ahead of the cloud’s expected arrival.

The Fourth Incident was underway. It had announced its onset in the typical manner. No one on Planet Earth was ready for it. They never were. But here it was, unstoppable and deadly, its horrific effects mere hours away.

“Come on, Isabella,” Orval muttered as there was no answer. He was in full self-preservation mode now. He had to survive this. And he was immensely frustrated, because as powerful as he’d become, there appeared to be no defense against this enemy.

“Where do you think she is?” asked Clair, standing by his side.

That question was answered a split second later as Orval’s com started buzzing.

“Isabella,” said Orval impatiently, “what’s going on down there at Dover?”

“They’re having an emergency meeting at Governor Kara’s residence,” replied Isabella. “All of the community leaders are there. And I overheard a conversation. Seems like the Virginia community has a large functional submarine at their Norfolk naval facility. A select group of people are planning to board the sub, stay submerged until the fog clears, and then re-surface. This should allow them all to survive. They’ve agreed to let some of the critical Delmarva people on board the sub as well. There should be more than enough time for them to fly down there.”

“How many?” asked Orval, his mind already working.

“I don’t know yet. But go ahead and turn on your listening device. Everyone’s in that house, and the bug I planted earlier is still working. I’m sure they’ll fill you in on all the details.”

Orval hung up, not bothering with any more small talk. He spoke directly to Clair. “We have to be on that submarine ourselves. We’ll stop at nothing. If necessary, we’ll fight the people from Delmarva for their spots. Get on the phone with Clarence, and have him prep his aircraft for a flight down to Virginia.” Clarence was one of Orval’s trusted associates, and a skilled pilot.

With that taken care of, Orval headed back inside and flipped on his receiver. He could hear the voices of the Delmarva leaders. His timing was perfect; the meeting had just begun.

“You all know how much I hate formalities,” said Kara to the group which had assembled in her living room, with Lars seated beside her. “I believe that everyone in this community is equal, and that no one human life is more important than another, regardless of their station in life.”

The group listened in silence. They wore deathly serious expressions on their faces, for they were all too aware of the issues Kara had just addressed. They were eight in number: Abby, Essence, Taff, Hannah, Noah, Mimosa, Mercy and Amelia.

“But this awful situation we’re about to face, in just a few hours,” Kara continued, “creates terrible moral and ethical dilemmas. When I accepted this role as community leader, I promised to always act in the best interests of the community at large. I must do that now. But let me say again – you can’t imagine how much it pains me to make this declaration.”

Kara hesitated, taking a moment to gather herself. The others – seemingly hand-picked by Kara as the cream of the crop at Delmarva – sat there speechless, their brains unable to form any coherent words. A few were actually shivering, albeit mostly from the sharp early autumn chill that had permeated the unheated residence.

“I’ll go and get the fireplace started,” Lars offered. Kara nodded and paused her speech while Lars attended to that matter. He was back in a minute or so.

“Let me explain further,” Kara went on. “Our friends in Virginia have possession of a submarine that they’ve managed to keep in good working order.”

This revelation caused the others in the room to perk up somewhat, as they immediately realized the possibilities. They immediately started throwing questions at Kara, who held up her hand.

“Allow me to finish the story, and then I’ll do my best to answer any questions you may have. The submarine can safely accommodate sixty people. The leaders of their community have, as a show of goodwill to our community for all the assistance we’ve offered in the past, offered us six spots on their submarine. Six of us will be able to join them. That leaves fifty-four for their own people. I tried my best to negotiate for more spots, but they held firm at six. So, we’ll need to get six people down to Norfolk as soon as we can. We do need to be thankful for this – it was they who reached out and made the offer, and they didn’t have to do that.”

At that instant, the transmission from Orval’s receiver went dead. He didn’t know it, but the fire that Lars had started in the fireplace had destroyed the bug.

“Shit!” screamed Orval. “Get a hold of Isabella! Tell her to fix the damn thing!”

“We already know what they’re going to do,” Clair pointed out. “We don’t really need any more information.”

Orval had to allow that Clair had a point. He ran his hand through his hair. “Okay then. They have room for six people. You, me, Clarence ... and we’ll probably have to extract Isabella from Dover. That might be tricky. And we should probably include Laird. We’ll identify one more. Get a hold of Laird, and tell him to get his ass over here.”

Kara opened up the floor for questions at this point. Abby – who had more questions than any of them at this point – spoke first.

“Is there even enough time to get everyone down to Virginia?” she wondered.

Mimosa fielded that question. “Past experience has told us that it takes eight hours for the cloud to travel from Cronus to Earth. I first spotted it shortly after three o’clock. So, it should arrive at around eleven.” The clock on the wall read 5:10 a.m.

“I can have us at Norfolk in about an hour and a half,” said Noah. “Maybe a little less. So, yeah, we have plenty of time.”

“Let me ask the obvious question,” said Essence. “There are six spots available on the submarine, but there are ten people in this room. What gives with that?”

Kara replied with a tight-lipped expression. “For me, this was the most difficult part of all this – narrowing down the field, so to speak. I had to cast aside all personal feelings and consider each person’s value to the community. When I narrowed it down to this group, I reached a point where I simply couldn’t go any further. I’ve come up with something to help me out.”

She paused again, letting that sink in.

“Before we get to that,” she went on, “I want to tell you all something else. Lars and I have spoken at length about this, and we’ve decided that the two of us will not be traveling down to Virginia to get on the submarine. We’ll both stay here and take our chances. So, I’ll just need to narrow it down from eight to six.”

Looks of utter disbelief were exchanged among the others present.

“Kara ... you’re the l-leader of the community,” Abby stammered. “How can you consider yourself dispensable?”

“Because I am dispensable. Anyone can be elected to do my job. The rest of you have specialized skills that will be very difficult to replace. When considering the needs of this community, my role is not really all that important, at least compared to the rest of you. And not only that, my job entails maintaining order and support while that cloud approaches. I need to be here for the others. I intend to fulfill that obligation.”

“Like the captain going down with her ship,” Taff said softly.

“Exactly,” Kara said wryly.

“And I’m staying with my wife,” said Lars. “That’s not even up for debate.”

“But what about me?” Abby went on, her voice rising in protest. “I don’t have an important role! Plus, I’m immune to this allergen! At least the first time, right? I’ll stay behind. Let someone else take my place!”

Kara was already shaking her head. “Abby, you’re a special case. First of all, I consider it vitally important to protect you from harm. We have a responsibility to you. And on top of that...”

Abby was also shaking her head forcefully, about to continue her protest, but Kara silenced her with a finger to the lips gesture.

“On top of that, Abby, there’s a practical thing to consider. There may be an advantage for us to maintain your ‘unsensitized’ status, for lack of a better term. It may prove to be useful for research purposes.” With this comment, Essence began to nod in agreement.

“Kara is right,” Essence said to Abby. “Keeping you from being sensitized to the allergen might be critical.”

At that juncture, Abby decided to drop her objection, although she still wasn’t happy about it.

“With all that said,” continued Kara, “there are eight of you left, and there are only six spots available. I want each of you to have an equal chance at the six spots, so I suggest we resort to an old-fashioned method – drawing names from a hat. Or, in this case, an empty coffee pot.” She held up an old coffee pot she’d found in one of the warehouses.

“Now,” said Kara, “there are those in this group of eight which are in committed relationships together. Rather than separate those people from their significant other, I believe it’s important for them to be together. So, rather than have eight names to draw from, we’ll have four groups of two. Lars will draw one name – one pair – from the coffee pot, and they will be the two who will remain behind. Mercy and Amelia, you are one pair. Taff and Hannah, you are another. Essence and Abby, you are a third. The two remaining people, Noah and Mimosa, I’ll put together as the fourth group. Now, I want to direct this question to all of you. Does anyone object to anything I’ve said so far? If so, let me know now, and I’ll take your objections into consideration.”