Deck 53. Section L. Johan’s workshop.
They couldn’t make ventilators fast enough. The adults in the colony were dropping like flies and half the cases needed a ventilator to push sufficient air into their lungs. Thief and Emily worked into the evening, assembling the pumps and connecting the lines to six more units. The two older boys delivered the heavy boxes as close to the hospital as quarantine allowed, for nurses to take the rest of the way.
“That’s it.” Johan announced when he finished testing a pump. “We have no more impeller blades. Can’t make pumps without them. The printer is too slow. A 3D printer hummed away in the corner, constructing the next plastic blade.
“When you deliver this last one, boys, can you tell them that there’s no more until the morning?”
Thief couldn’t help wondering if her mother was on a ventilator or needing one. It frightened her knowing that Mamma wouldn’t take one ahead of anyone else.
Sam and Thomas packed up the ventilator and lifted it onto the small trolley. They’d push it all the way to the top of the stairs. That was easy. Much harder was wrestling it down the tight staircase, without damaging it. The labour wore both young men out, but they tried not to show it.
Thief stood up, brushing bits of wire and solder from her jumpsuit. “I’ll go too, you guys look tired, maybe I can help?”
“We’re not tired. Could move another six of these, right Sam?” Thomas said.
“Boys.” Thief whispered to Emily, “they’ve always got something to prove.”
The real reason Thief wanted to help was to check her Mamma. To make sure she was okay. And so, ignoring reassurances from the males of their physical prowess, she followed them as they trundled the ventilator out of the workshop. Emily called out after her.
“Can you check on Dad too? And Hamish’s folks?”
“Of course, silly. If I see them, or anyone will talk to me.”
Main street was quieter than ever. Only a couple of essential supply stands were open, operated by older children.
Thief looked longingly at Emily’s quarters and thought of the bunk bed within. Fatigue was taking hold, but she reminded herself that her mother, and all the other nurses, had been working even harder. Some of them while sick.
The boys were pushing their trolley too fast, and a wheel caught on a steel floor plate. The ventilator almost went tumbling off the front.
“Hey, slow down. That ventilator is precious!” Thief scolded them when she caught up.
“Well, yes, sir!” Sam said, shoving the load further back on the trolley, “Whatever you say. Please don’t tell on us to the teacher, eh? Teachers pet!”
“Get lost. I’m not the teacher’s pet. I’m only trying to help.”
“Trying to pretend you’re a techie more like it, when we know you’re only a petty thief, eh Thomas!” But Thomas seemed reluctant to join in the taunting. He shrugged at his friend and wouldn’t look Thief in the eye.
Thief’s fists clenched at the insult. Never had someone using her nickname made her so mad. She loved her name. She’d earned it. How dare this horrible boy mock her for it? Days and nights of fear, and worry, and anger burst inside her. She kicked Sam right between his legs, like the older girls said to do. Even barefoot, the blow brought him to his knees, and he howled in pain. Thief’s eyes flashed at Thomas, daring him to join in. He decided against it. Sam hobbled off, holding his privates and moaning. Perhaps to tell Johan what she’d done. But Thief didn’t care.
The hospital still needed their delivery, though. Without another word Thief pushed the trolley, and Thomas had no choice but to join her, keeping a wary eye on her feet.
They struggled to get the hefty machine down the stairs. Thief wasn’t able to bear the weight that Sam had, no matter how tough she was. But soon they had it off the bottom stair and back on wheels. From there it was an easy push to the hospital doors. A guard stopped them from going any further.
“Please.” Thief asked, “Can I check how my mother is?” And she remembered her friend’s families too and gave the guard their names. At first, he stood with his arms crossed, unmoved by the request. Perhaps others had been pestering him for news of patients. But something about Thief made him relent, and he told them to wait there while he checked. Thief sat on a nearby bench, swinging her legs impatiently.
The news was mixed. Thief’s Mother and Emily’s father were both categorised as serious but were not in need of ventilation yet. Hamish’s parents were critical, and both on ventilators. Thief understood the disease’s progression, from snippets of conversation she’d overheard. Patients that were so bad they needed ventilation had a fifty-fifty chance of survival. She wondered what she was going to tell Hamish.
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A nurse stuck her head through the doorway behind the guard.
“We’ve got a ventilator that’s not pushing much air out. Can you take it back for fixing? We’ve left it behind the new ward, outside. You have to go around.” She disappeared again.
“I’ll get it.” Thomas said headed off with the trolley down the side of the ward.
“I’ll be right there, you can’t do it yourself.” Thief called after him. She wanted to ask some more questions on the condition of Hamish’s parents, but wondered if she should push her luck with the guard.
As she was about to beg for more information, a frightened shriek came from the back of the hospital.
***
Bianca, upon seeing a healthy specimen of a young man wander around the side of the plastic sheeting, decided her luck had improved. Without a moment’s hesitation, she leaped at him, fangs bared. Thomas tried to turn and run, but turning was as far as he got. The vampire had him in a chokehold. She dragged him backwards. He screamed before her hand clamped his mouth shut. Sharp fingernails dug into his cheek. His head banged on the floor as he was pulled into the ventilation duct.
Thief and the security guard ran to the scene. Thief lowered her legs into the hole, but the guard held her by the collar. “No! You’ll get taken too.”
“But we have to help him.” Thief struggled in the guard’s arms, to no avail. Of the older, obnoxious boys, Thomas was the least mean to her. And nobody deserved the fate that had befallen him.
Adults from the hospital arrived, breaking the separation rules to respond to all the shouting and screaming. The broken ventilator lay forgotten as Thief rushed back to the workshop.
***
“I want to find him. Perhaps they don’t kill you straight away.” She yelled at a surprised Johan and Emily as they came to grips with the news. Johan tried to wait for the hysterical teenager to calm down.
“And if we lose you as well? Two techies gone in one day?”
Even in her wound-up state, Thief didn’t miss the fact that he’d referred to her as a techie. A burst of pride joined the mix of emotions roiling around her head. Somehow it calmed her, and she remembered the other news she had to report.
“Em, your Dad is okay, he doesn’t need a ventilator, at least not yet.” She bent down to Hamish. He’d been staring up at the whole commotion from his usual cross-legged position.
“Hamish, bud.” She was no good at this stuff, but she wouldn’t sugar-coat things. “Your Mamma and Dad are quite sick. I’m sorry.” The boy didn’t look like he knew what that meant until he hugged her legs. Emily stepped over the mess of parts on the floor to join the hug.
Their consoling of Hamish was interrupted by a messenger at the workshop door.
“Mister Johan, you’re required at an emergency council meeting. Please follow me.”
“You won’t do anything stupid while I’m gone, will you Thief?” Johan asked her.
“She won’t.” Emily replied before Thief could answer. “I’ll make sure of it.”
***
Deck 52. Rear Section K. Council Chambers.
Johan couldn’t remember the last council meeting he’d attended. But he was sure it wasn’t like this one. They packed the council chambers, wall to wall. The eldest members of the community shouted at each other and banged their fists on the table. One elderly woman had a voice louder than most.
“Forget the virus, we have to deal with this demon. It’s taken two of us in as many weeks. It won’t stop.”
“We’ve tried in the past to find the demon, and for nothing.” A senior councillor argued. “In fact, if you’ll remember, Janice, one of the search parties didn’t return. Back when you were a wee girl.”
“I remember it well.” Janice countered. “We were close to killing it, if we’d sent more people…”
“Then more people would have been lost!”
And the arguments continued. The room divided into those that wanted to deal with the demon versus those that saw the virus as the bigger threat.
When everyone had spoken, and sometimes shouted their piece, things calmed down and senior council members questioned Johan.
“We can keep making one ventilator a day and maybe repair an additional one or two. I’m sorry, but we don’t have more 3D printers.” He reported.
“It won’t be more ventilators we need.” said Doctor Warren. “Half the people on them die so it frees up that machine for someone else. Our death toll has now reached thirty-seven.”
This sent a renewed buzz though the meeting, and a barrage of questions at the Doctor regarding who had succumbed since her last report. Johan wondered why he was there.
“We need antiviral drugs, and the means to create a vaccine.” Warren stated, turning to Johan. Other heads turned with hers.
“So?” he wasn’t sure why everyone looked at him. His workshop was far from capable of producing pharmaceuticals. The hospital’s lab produced them. Everyone knew that.
Another senior councilman, with an air of wisdom about him, spoke up “Legend has it, there are extensive science laboratories at the front of the ship.” He said. ” Laboratories that should contain the instruments we need.”
Johan surmised the rest.
“You want Thief to find these labs?” he asked. “But she’s never been past engineering. No one has. We have no idea what’s further forward than that. I’ve heard of those labs too, and they are at least another kilometre away. And what will she do when she gets there? Fight off demons while concocting a vaccine for us?”
When put like that, the notion sounded preposterous. The faces around the table fell.
“Not quite.” Doctor Warren said after a sombre pause. “But she can report what she finds. We’ll at least know if the ship contains the means to fight the virus. She might even bring back equipment to make a start. You know, bit by bit. Perhaps there’s an electron microscope, for instance.”
Johan wanted to explain how stupid that was, carrying bulky equipment through miles of unknown tunnels. He’d been worried enough when she’d gone half that distance for a small bag of parts. These people were clutching at straws.
“I have another idea,” he said to the expectant faces “I think I’m close to building an interface with the AI. There’s a part we need, in the Engineering section. Thief can bring that back much easier. We can try to contact the computer and ask for help.”
“Not you and the bloody ship’s computer again.” A voice grumbled.
The meeting went on. Arguments and counter arguments ebbed and flowed until they reached a compromise. Thief would find Johan’s mysterious computer part first. And he’d have 24 hours to finish his interface. After that, she’d try to find the science labs. Interface or not.
“Why can’t we do both at the same time?” someone asked, “Or is she the only one that can crawl into these places?”
“No, she isn’t the only one,” Johan answered, “But she’s the best.”