still large enough to take up a good ten feet of the room between its sprawling roots. Daniel scanned the room, but found no sign that anyone had been here in a long time. There was a nook in the tree roots that was large enough to hide the jetskip.
Daniel dropped his duffel and returned to the woods where the skip lay waiting. He took care to carry rather than drag it to the warehouse. His footprints in the carpet of moldering leaves made him nervous enough. A deep groove leading up to the doorway would have raised curiosity in the idlest of passersby, or predators. The city might be dead, but that didn’t mean the woods were.
The last census was taken nearly fifteen years ago, and best estimates put the surviving population in the Delta region at eight thousand, approximately sixty-five hundred in or near the environs of the former city of New Orleans. And that was a generous estimate, given the easy transmission of Delta Fever, the hundreds of other hazards in the damaged city, and the lack of proper medical care. Blood transfusions, a common treatment for the Fever, were notoriously dangerous in the field, where blood could not be spun clean in centrifuges and separated from the plasma. A field transfusion could result in death from fatty deposits, liver damage, and even heart attacks. Daniel doubted the census guesstimates had factored in all of the ways a person could die. Even so, eight thousand people—that was less than a full football stadium, less than the student body of his university, and he had avoided hanging out with most of them rather easily. Navigating the empty streets of Orleans should be simple enough.
The New in New Orleans had been dropped after the second chain of storms, when the Fever was at its worst. It had been before Daniel’s time, but he wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was a publicity ploy or a media joke. There had been attempts to re-create New Orleans in the surviving South. Somewhere near Charleston, a private island was sold to the government with plans to relocate the more historical structures, and many of the city’s people. But Hurricane Lorenzo had dispensed with those plans. The first ground-breaking had been interrupted by a hurricane warning late enough in the season to take people by surprise, and the government had pulled its funding. Daniel knew this because the island, now simply known as Folly Island, had been one of the places he and his team were allowed to collect environmental samples. Not quite the same flora as you would find in the Delta, and certainly not the same mix of toxins in the water, but as close as one could get outside of the quarantine zone. It was like a theme park version of the real place, Daniel thought.
He accessed the datalink strapped to his wrist.
INQUIRY: Entered city at coordinates 56 SW 32 NE. Draw map to Institute of Post-Separation Studies from here.
RESPONSE: Feeding coordinates now. Instructions on screen.
Daniel tweaked his goggles again. A red line appeared on the green overlay of the city. The map was hopelessly out of date, but the main features would be the same. Especially for a landmark that important. Assuming it was still there, a cynical voice said inside his head.
The Institute of Post-Separation Studies had been established shortly before the Wall went up. Staffed with scientists willing to dedicate their lives to the cause, the goal of the Institute was to study the closed environment of Orleans—socially and medically. He knew the official charter was to study intergroup relations after the residents were divided into groups by blood type. They had an interdisciplinary goal of understanding social bias and hate crimes—if people divided along medical lines, would race or gender matter?
In the early days, data flowed freely from the Institute to data banks at universities across the States. But by the time Daniel was in school, the information had all but dried up. He was convinced the Institute still existed, in
Daniel dropped his duffel and returned to the woods where the skip lay waiting. He took care to carry rather than drag it to the warehouse. His footprints in the carpet of moldering leaves made him nervous enough. A deep groove leading up to the doorway would have raised curiosity in the idlest of passersby, or predators. The city might be dead, but that didn’t mean the woods were.
The last census was taken nearly fifteen years ago, and best estimates put the surviving population in the Delta region at eight thousand, approximately sixty-five hundred in or near the environs of the former city of New Orleans. And that was a generous estimate, given the easy transmission of Delta Fever, the hundreds of other hazards in the damaged city, and the lack of proper medical care. Blood transfusions, a common treatment for the Fever, were notoriously dangerous in the field, where blood could not be spun clean in centrifuges and separated from the plasma. A field transfusion could result in death from fatty deposits, liver damage, and even heart attacks. Daniel doubted the census guesstimates had factored in all of the ways a person could die. Even so, eight thousand people—that was less than a full football stadium, less than the student body of his university, and he had avoided hanging out with most of them rather easily. Navigating the empty streets of Orleans should be simple enough.
The New in New Orleans had been dropped after the second chain of storms, when the Fever was at its worst. It had been before Daniel’s time, but he wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was a publicity ploy or a media joke. There had been attempts to re-create New Orleans in the surviving South. Somewhere near Charleston, a private island was sold to the government with plans to relocate the more historical structures, and many of the city’s people. But Hurricane Lorenzo had dispensed with those plans. The first ground-breaking had been interrupted by a hurricane warning late enough in the season to take people by surprise, and the government had pulled its funding. Daniel knew this because the island, now simply known as Folly Island, had been one of the places he and his team were allowed to collect environmental samples. Not quite the same flora as you would find in the Delta, and certainly not the same mix of toxins in the water, but as close as one could get outside of the quarantine zone. It was like a theme park version of the real place, Daniel thought.
He accessed the datalink strapped to his wrist.
INQUIRY: Entered city at coordinates 56 SW 32 NE. Draw map to Institute of Post-Separation Studies from here.
RESPONSE: Feeding coordinates now. Instructions on screen.
Daniel tweaked his goggles again. A red line appeared on the green overlay of the city. The map was hopelessly out of date, but the main features would be the same. Especially for a landmark that important. Assuming it was still there, a cynical voice said inside his head.
The Institute of Post-Separation Studies had been established shortly before the Wall went up. Staffed with scientists willing to dedicate their lives to the cause, the goal of the Institute was to study the closed environment of Orleans—socially and medically. He knew the official charter was to study intergroup relations after the residents were divided into groups by blood type. They had an interdisciplinary goal of understanding social bias and hate crimes—if people divided along medical lines, would race or gender matter?
In the early days, data flowed freely from the Institute to data banks at universities across the States. But by the time Daniel was in school, the information had all but dried up. He was convinced the Institute still existed, in
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