me,” Henry said.
“I seem cruel, I know. If there were a god, I would be damned, I am sure of it. But we have no gods, do we, Henry? We, who have the ultimate power to create and destroy, must act in their place.”
“What we created was a mistake,” Henry said. “It should never have been brought back to life.”
Jürgen shook his head dismissively. “As I said, you will remain here until the contagion has done its job. I’m doing you a favor, Henry. As a prisoner, you don’t have to take on the moral guilt. It is all on me. I doubt you understand, but I’ve agonized over this. I’m not mad, you know. The world will be better because of what we do.”
“When I discovered how you manipulated the virus, I realized you would probably use it again,” Henry said. “And so I spent many precious hours studying its secrets. And I succeeded, Jürgen, I’ve cured Enterovirus parsons. Now my name will not be associated with the genocide you intend to inflict.”
“Unlikely,” Jürgen said. “This virus is very complex.”
“I’ve published the details on the internet already. By now, you should have an email from Maria Savona at WHO describing the virus and its treatment.”
Jürgen looked at him uncertainly, then checked his email. The letter from Maria was part of a worldwide health advisory. Jürgen was quiet as he read through the technical details. After a moment, he looked up. “It’s beautiful work, Henry. I wish you hadn’t done it.”
Jürgen walked to the glass wall and stood silently for a moment. “I suppose I should have you killed,” he said, almost as if he were asking permission.
“You can do with me what you will. But I will not go back into the laboratory.”
“They’ll carry on without us anyway,” Jürgen said. His expression was oddly serene. “You should accept this, Henry. Our participation is of no consequence. The diseases are being liberated even as we talk. This is humanity’s chosen means of suicide.”
Jürgen picked up his phone and called for Heidi. “Dr. Parsons is leaving now,” he said. “Let him go.”
55
October Revolution Island
The message was brief: 35.101390, -77.047523, 10/31, 0630.
Just before dawn on Halloween, Henry sat with Helen and Teddy at a picnic table in a public park on a spit of land at the juncture of the Trent and Neuse rivers, near New Bern, North Carolina, where the GPS coordinates indicated they should wait. It promised to be a crisp and beautiful day, the last they would see for quite a while. Henry did not want to unsettle his children with that news, even though they were not the people he remembered. They were harder. He thought: The children of the future will be like this.
The second wave of Kongoli was sweeping across the globe. Doctors were frantically learning Henry’s variolation technique to stem the contagion. Meantime, viruses that had been engineered in laboratories were making their debut, attacking weakened and vulnerable populations. The first great biowar was under way, and, unlike all other wars, no one could stop it.
The sky lightened. Just across the barrier islands the Atlantic awaited, vast and indifferent. The tide was in and water spilled over a retaining wall that had been built long before global warming raised the seas. Coastal communities like this one were in retreat. Henry imagined the great cities of the world sinking into the ocean like Atlantis, one after another.
Teddy walked down to the edge of the water and began skipping stones.
“See those clouds?” Henry asked Helen as the sun came up. “They’re called stratocumulus. They usually mean a great storm is coming.”
Helen took in the clouds, which were streaked in vermillion. “They’re beautiful,” she said.
“Remember this day,” Henry said. Helen nodded. She didn’t ask why.
As Teddy was about to throw another rock, something shifted in the river. He took a step back. Suddenly an immense form rose to the surface. It seemed to fill up the whole river. It was the USS Georgia.
As Captain Dixon appeared on the bridge, a group of SEALs paddled a rubber launch to the shore. Henry had told his children they could bring only a few changes of clothes that could fit in their backpacks. He had brought a weathered leather case that held his high school clarinet.
“Extra crew?” Dixon said.
“They’re pretty competent,” Henry said.
“Well, they may come in handy. We’re shorthanded. This is an all-volunteer mission.”
Dixon let the children stand on the bridge as the submarine navigated through the tidal river into