spot on her cheek. “I feel like I’m having an X-ray taken,” she said with her mouth closed.
“Oh, we see through a lot of people here. That’s fine; you can move now. Mr.
Hammond
.”
The man left, slightly flouncing, and Jules Hammond came through the same door. He gave O’Hara a strange look and sat down next to her.
“We want you to listen to something.” He sat and pushed a button under the arm of his chair. “Ready on Four.”
One of the cubes lit up, but it was just a white block, no picture. Then there was a faint voice, metallic, crackling with static. She didn’t recognize it:
“This probably can’t work but it’s worth a try. I checked and the antenna is pointed at New New. Found a fuel cell with a little juice and plugged it into the ‘DC Emergency In’ slot. It moves the power needle a little bit.”
That night a quarter of a million people would see her gasp and burst into sudden tears. “This is Jeffrey Hawkings calling New New York, specifically calling Marianne O’Hara, root line Scanlan. Marianne? I hope yougot home all right. For some reason I’m alive. The plague didn’t touch me.
“I’m pretty sure it’s my acromegaly. You know I had to take NGH every day. After the war I couldn’t find any; it’s a pretty rare disease.
“Well, I’ve met two other adults who survived the plague, and they were both acromegalic. One’s an idiot who runs a tribe north of here, in Disney World. The other I just met on the road. He was mentally retarded, too; I guess neither of them got proper treatment when they were young.
“If anybody up there is interested in finding a cure for this thing, then there’s your main clue. Something to do with the pituitary gland. That’s what’s wrong with acromegalics, they put out too much growth hormone. My own physical profile should be in your records somewhere, since I applied for immigration just before the war.
“Things are pretty grim here, Marianne, as you can imagine. I understand it’s even worse up north. Not too bad for me personally—I’m in a place called Plant City, at the St. Theresa Pediatrics Hospital. I found the key to a civil defense vault here, full of medicine. I fill my saddlebags with it and pedal from town to town, playing doctor. They treat me as sort of a demigod…there’s a lot of violence, a lot of ritual killing from this damned Family business, but nobody lays a finger on me. My long white beard protects me. I’m glad it grew in white.”
There was a long crash of static. “—sure there isn’t enough power for me to receive. But I’ll keep looking for fuel cells, maybe figure out how to make one.
“I don’t have any way of keeping track of the date. But I’ll be back here, St. Theresa’s Pediatrics Hospital in Plant City, Florida, at every full moon, about midnight, to broadcast and try to receive an answer.
“Things must be tough up there, too… if you’re there at all. If the plague got carried up I guess I’m wasting mytime. But I hope, Marianne, you made it okay and got to marry Daniel. It seems like another life, a lifetime ago, when you were—” Static took over and when it quieted there was no more transmission.
Charlie’s Will
He turned off the radio transmitter and stared at his large hands. Maybe he shouldn’t have said midnight. That meant either traveling at night or holing up in this hospital for hours. The place was a boneyard. But he remembered his police radio used to receive best at night. He picked up his full saddlebags and his scattergun and followed a large cockroach down the hospital corridor to the fire stairs. Funny how you changed. One time, he would have chased the cockroach down and crushed it. Today he was obscurely glad that something else in the hospital was alive. Maybe it was affecting his brain, the growth hormone. It was affecting his hands and feet and other joints, aching like arthritis. He would treat himself to more aspirin, first stop.
On the ground
“Oh, we see through a lot of people here. That’s fine; you can move now. Mr.
Hammond
.”
The man left, slightly flouncing, and Jules Hammond came through the same door. He gave O’Hara a strange look and sat down next to her.
“We want you to listen to something.” He sat and pushed a button under the arm of his chair. “Ready on Four.”
One of the cubes lit up, but it was just a white block, no picture. Then there was a faint voice, metallic, crackling with static. She didn’t recognize it:
“This probably can’t work but it’s worth a try. I checked and the antenna is pointed at New New. Found a fuel cell with a little juice and plugged it into the ‘DC Emergency In’ slot. It moves the power needle a little bit.”
That night a quarter of a million people would see her gasp and burst into sudden tears. “This is Jeffrey Hawkings calling New New York, specifically calling Marianne O’Hara, root line Scanlan. Marianne? I hope yougot home all right. For some reason I’m alive. The plague didn’t touch me.
“I’m pretty sure it’s my acromegaly. You know I had to take NGH every day. After the war I couldn’t find any; it’s a pretty rare disease.
“Well, I’ve met two other adults who survived the plague, and they were both acromegalic. One’s an idiot who runs a tribe north of here, in Disney World. The other I just met on the road. He was mentally retarded, too; I guess neither of them got proper treatment when they were young.
“If anybody up there is interested in finding a cure for this thing, then there’s your main clue. Something to do with the pituitary gland. That’s what’s wrong with acromegalics, they put out too much growth hormone. My own physical profile should be in your records somewhere, since I applied for immigration just before the war.
“Things are pretty grim here, Marianne, as you can imagine. I understand it’s even worse up north. Not too bad for me personally—I’m in a place called Plant City, at the St. Theresa Pediatrics Hospital. I found the key to a civil defense vault here, full of medicine. I fill my saddlebags with it and pedal from town to town, playing doctor. They treat me as sort of a demigod…there’s a lot of violence, a lot of ritual killing from this damned Family business, but nobody lays a finger on me. My long white beard protects me. I’m glad it grew in white.”
There was a long crash of static. “—sure there isn’t enough power for me to receive. But I’ll keep looking for fuel cells, maybe figure out how to make one.
“I don’t have any way of keeping track of the date. But I’ll be back here, St. Theresa’s Pediatrics Hospital in Plant City, Florida, at every full moon, about midnight, to broadcast and try to receive an answer.
“Things must be tough up there, too… if you’re there at all. If the plague got carried up I guess I’m wasting mytime. But I hope, Marianne, you made it okay and got to marry Daniel. It seems like another life, a lifetime ago, when you were—” Static took over and when it quieted there was no more transmission.
Charlie’s Will
He turned off the radio transmitter and stared at his large hands. Maybe he shouldn’t have said midnight. That meant either traveling at night or holing up in this hospital for hours. The place was a boneyard. But he remembered his police radio used to receive best at night. He picked up his full saddlebags and his scattergun and followed a large cockroach down the hospital corridor to the fire stairs. Funny how you changed. One time, he would have chased the cockroach down and crushed it. Today he was obscurely glad that something else in the hospital was alive. Maybe it was affecting his brain, the growth hormone. It was affecting his hands and feet and other joints, aching like arthritis. He would treat himself to more aspirin, first stop.
On the ground
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