Deck 53. Rear Section H. Main street.

In the morning, they discovered Emily’s mother had left, and a crowd had gathered on Main Street. A crowd comprising teenagers and younger children. Doctor Warren arrived and began with a simple announcement.

“We’ve cancelled school.”

This garnered the expected cheers and chatter. When that died down, she continued.

“Does everyone know what a virus is?” she asked the upturned faces.

Heads nodded and a few older children whispered explanations into younger ears.

“Okay, well done. Now, because this thing is a virus, not a bacterium, our antibiotic drugs won’t work. This is a problem. It’s easy to make antibiotics. We have lots. But it’s harder to make antiviral drugs. We lost that ability in the cataclysm. And even if we didn’t, not every virus can be defeated with drugs. It’s why the norovirus killed so many.”

Emily put a hand on Thief’s shoulder. She knew the last virus had taken Thief’s Dad. The two of them hung at the rear of the crowd. Hamish sat at their feet and looked up, sensing the gravity of the situation.

The doctor continued.

“Does anyone know the different ways disease can spread?”

A teenage boy near the front held up his hand. “From nits. That’s why we all shave our heads and privates!”

This caused giggles across the group.

“Yes, good. From nits, for sure, and fleas, and other parasites. But also touching. And even touching objects after someone with the virus has touched them. But the most challenging viruses are airborne. We can control nits and keep ourselves and objects clean. But it’s hard to control what’s in the air.”

The giggles died down. Most of the audience seemed to understand.

“So,” the Doctor continued, “We’re pretty sure this virus is the worst kind. It’s airborne.”

Someone in the crowd muttered, “Damn!”

“We’re treating the symptoms as best we can. Johan and the other techies, the ones that aren’t in the hospital, are going to make ventilator machines to help our worst cases,” she consulted a handwritten note, “They are also figuring out how to provide the whole hospital with a separate air supply. I’m told we might feel changes in the air, the temperature, and the noise of a brief airlock leak as they purge air from the re-circ system. So don’t panic when you hear that.”

“If there’s a silver lining in all of this,” Warren continued, “It’s that it doesn’t affect young people. We don’t have a single patient under twenty years old.” This did little to cheer anyone. Most of those present had an older family member coughing their lungs out in the hospital.

“But while you are not susceptible to this thing, you most likely carry it. That means, even by breathing next to an adult, you could infect them.”

She paused before delivering the bombshell. “So we now forbid most of you to mix with adults.”

Gasps and protests erupted from the small crowd.

“I’m sorry, I know this is hard. But we must separate young from old until we eradicate the virus. The council has been meeting all night, working on a strategy. The entire future of the colony depends on this. And we must all play our part.”

Thief and Emily moved closer together.

“We’ve assigned children aged twelve and younger to older children who will now be their guardians. Of course, siblings and anyone with close connections will be together. We think we’ve got the assignments right, but we can make adjustments.”

Warren folded up her note and took a deep breath.

“That brings me to the last point. I’m sure you all know that Mister Campbell has gone missing. I will not lie to you kids. He’s likely been taken. I wish I could tell you that we make the stories up. That there’s no such thing as monsters. But if I did that, you might not be careful. And we need you to be careful. Even more so, with no adults to supervise you now. So please, don’t go anywhere by yourself. Stay in twos or threes. We’ll be training some teenagers in jobs the adults used to do. Guys, you will need to bring your dependants with you. Nobody should ever be alone, not even for a minute. Do you understand?”

Heads nodded in sombre agreement.

“Those aged over twelve, please come forward to receive your assignments. We also have messages from parents. Collect any that are for your dependants too.”

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“Let’s wait,” Thief said, as kids rushed forward, keen to see their assignments and messages.

“Can I stay with you?” Hamish stood up, looking worried.

“Of course.” Emily answered and rubbed his head. “Even if they haven’t put you with us, we can get them to change it, right Thief?”

Thief shrugged. “Yep, sure thing.” If they were going to land her with a child, it may as well be the one she already knew. She wondered if they might have to take another one on, besides Hamish. After all, the adults deemed both her and Emily old enough to have dependants. These were strange times.

She needn’t have worried. When the crowd thinned, they wandered forward for their orders. Johan had submitted a request for helpers, including Thief. His department was stretched with the increased workload of monitoring air quality and producing ventilators. It reminded Thief how much weight the Chief Technician carried in the community.

Hamish came with the package. Someone had recognised they were a group already.

“Now.” Doctor Warren spoke to them alone, “We haven’t assigned you two another child, given that you’ll be very busy with the techies. Also, I don’t want too many kids bouncing around that workshop of Johan’s. He’s already convinced me to break the rules, exposing him to potential infection. So, none of you are to visit anywhere else, apart from the workshop and Emily’s house. Is that understood?” She looked at them for agreement. Thief could see dark bags under her eyes. The poor woman had been on her feet for two days and nights already.

They also received messages from Thief’s Mother and Emily’s father. Along the same lines. They were well, or at least, only suffering mild symptoms. The kids were not to worry. They were even helping with light duties in the hospital. Please follow any orders. Emily’s Mother had temporary living quarters near the hydroponic section. She’d taken over her husband’s role of keeping the plants alive.

Thief grabbed her meagre possessions from home and helped the other two get Hamish’s. He insisted on bringing all the plants from his place. He then dictated very thorough instructions on how often to water each one.

“It’s like a bloody jungle in here.” Thief said.

“How would you know what a jungle is?” Emily laughed.

“Hey, I go to school. A year ahead of you, in fact.”

“Oh, cool. I get to do jungles next year.”

“You don’t do jungles, silly, you do geography. They’re included in that. By the way, the biggest jungle on Earth was called the Amazon. Big enough to have a million plants and trees.”

“Wow, I’d love to go there.” Hamish chimed in.

“Yes, well, we’re going in the opposite direction.” Thief wished she hadn’t said that, as Hamish’s smile vanished.

With everyone moved in, they left for “work”, feeling very grown up.

***

Before reaching section C3, the trio stumbled into Johan hurrying the other way.

“Thief! Come quick” Whereupon he turned on his heel and lead the way back. Emily followed, nonplussed, dragging Hamish by one arm.

The scanner device from the latest haul lay in pieces on his bench. He’d swiped everything else away. The other projects and parts formed a rejected pile on the floor.

“It’s not a scanner!” Johan panted. “I think it’s a signal receiver of sorts. For fibre optics.” He stopped to let that sink in. But the two girls seemed unimpressed. “It might help us talk to the AI!” He finished, shoving his glasses back up his nose.

“Wow, cool,” Thief said.

Emily, feeling left out, piped up.

“So there is an AI? A computer that controls the ship?”

“You betcha there is. And I reckon we’ll be talking to it soon enough, only….”

“Only what?” Thief asked.

“I think this thing connects to something else, before the fibre cable.” Johan turned and picked up a component. “See, this is an optical receiver here, but there’s no chip or circuitry to process the light waves it receives.” He said this as if making an obvious point.

“Okay, So I’ll go back and find the other part. Easy.” Thief said.

Hamish tugged at her clothes.

“Don’t go, we need you.”

“Hey, I can take care of you, scamp.” Emily said.

“She can’t go yet.” Johan looked down at Hamish, noticing him for the first time. “First, I need to show you the ventilators and the air samplers. We’ve been re-circing the atmosphere on this deck. At least for a while. Be a couple of days before it’s stale. But the council is all uppity over it. Anyway, I wanted to share the discovery. I’ve got good feelings about this.” He stopped talking to take a breath.

Thief smiled. It was the most animated she’d seen the techie in a while.

Johan started reassembling the parts, and Thief gave Emily and Hamish a tour of the workshop. They even tidied up, although they were careful not to move anything important.

The two other techies, boys in their late teens, arrived to take part in the training. They introduced themselves as Sam and Thomas, but Thief detected an air of superiority. She eyed them up and smiled. They were too big to go on missions like hers.

“We have two jobs. Ventilators and air samplers. The ventilators are simple pumps.” Johan explained, showing them inside a big steel box. “We have a limited supply of oxygen, it’s hard to separate and store, I won’t go into that. These are for patients that aren’t critical but still need help breathing. The ventilator pushes regular air into their windpipe.” He held up the hose that came from the box. “But if they’re critical, we can connect the unit to an oxygen tank and give them a rich oxygen mix.”

He showed them how to change a ventilator from one use to the other and adjust the flow. Everyone had a turn. Even Hamish.

“The air samplers,” Johan went on when satisfied everyone knew enough about ventilators, “Are like your rad counters. But they don’t measure gamma rays, they measure particles or different gases. Also, they aren’t able to check for the virus. Virus particles are too small. But they are useful for checking air quality when we’re re-circing our air supply like we are now.”

He tossed two small devices to his class. Emily caught one, and an older boy caught the other. “See the readout there? You’re looking for the number next to ‘CO2’. That’s what we all breathe out, and you don’t want to breathe in too much of it.” He paused. “Thief’s friend, what’s your name?”

“Emily.”

“Okay, Emily, what’s the CO2 number on your screen?”

“2,319” Emily read from the screen. “And there are also three letters, ’ppm’.”

“Yep, that’s parts per million. 2,319 means our air is pretty shit. Ha! But that’s normal for us. When you see that number higher than 5,000 please come and tell me. Okay?”

Johan asked them all spot questions from the training, and they passed with flying colours. They’d take it in turns with the air samplers. If you weren’t sampling air, you’d be in the workshop helping construct or check ventilators for the hospital.