The Dragon Plague

Chapter 9

The tunnel stretched for kilometres; it was completely dark except for the faint light coming from the street through the grates attached to the ceiling. At those points Sophie and Emma Lemaire walked hugging the walls to avoid being seen. Not that it was likely someone would look inside, but still.

Sophie walked in silence, crying softly; Emma followed her, equally silent. Every now and then the old lady threw her a concerned glance but, Sophie imagined, her companion had enough worries of her own.

It all seemed so surreal: the police, Amanda, the test results...

They do not want the vaccine to be created and spread, they will do anything to stop it, Amanda had said.

Was it really true? Sophie did not know what to believe. She had considered the option of turning herself in, but Amanda's bloody face still stood vividly before her eyes.

Was she still alive? Sophie had no idea. For all she knew, the cops had already searched the medical centre and found the secret door. Maybe they are already waiting for them on the other end of the tunnel, Sophie thought in panic.

She dried her eyes, took a deep shuddering breath and blinked rapidly to prevent the tears from coming back. There was no use in crying. She had to think.

Hide in a safe place, do not trust anyone... what was she supposed to do?

She didn't know any safe place, except for her apartment. But could she go back?

It wouldn't take long for the police to find her address... They only had to open any notebook in the medical centre, her contact information was everywhere.

Sophie and Emma had nothing with them: no documents, no handheld computer, nothing. Not even money, now that she thought of it. Where were they supposed to hide?

She sniffled: why her? What had she done to deserve all this?

Only that morning she was a normal person, with a house, a food card that would never let her starve, even her own private bathroom, and her salad seedlings...

No one would water them anymore, Sophie thought. They would die of thirst.

For some reason, that stupid thought made her cry again.

"My dear, are you alright?" Emma Lemaire asked.

"No," Sophie said.

"How long is this tunnel?"

"I don't know".

Emma sounded frantic: "Where do we go from here? What do we do? Were those people looking for me? What's in my blood?"

"I don't know, I don't know!" Sophie repeated.

The elderly woman kept looking at her expectantly as if she anticipated that at any moment she would tell her more.

But Sophie didn't know anything more, she didn't know anything about anything!

And now she also had to take care of this old lady because, let's be real, Emma Lemaire seemed very sweet, but she looked like she wouldn't last a day out there.

Not that Sophie was sure she would fare much better herself. What a pair we make, she thought bitterly.

"Why did you ask to have your blood tested?" she finally asked.

Maybe some talking would distract her from her gloomy thoughts and shed some light on this whole insane situation.

"Tested? Ah... " Emma seemed to consider it. "I was very ill some time ago. I thought I would die!"

Sophie kept walking: "Symptoms?"

"I had a fever... it was so high! It was like a fire burning inside me and..."

"Ok, high fever," Sophie snapped. Normally she would have been more polite, but at that moment she felt that being a little abrupt was more than justified. "What else? Cough, flu symptoms?"

Mrs. Lemaire thought about it: "I don't think so, no... but the pustules were horrible."

"Pustules?"

She nodded: "Oh yes, the pustules. Terrible, really annoying. I had them all along my spine, on the legs, and on my arms... I didn't know which way to turn when I was trying to sleep!"

There was a moment of silence, in which Sophie was acutely aware of her heart that began pounding in her chest. She breathed heavily through her nose.

She took a step back: "Get away from me," she whispered.

Emma Lemaire shook her head: "Oh no! I'm not infected! I did the tests three times!"

She made as if to place her hand on Sophie's arm.

Sophie winced: "Don't touch me!"

"Please, my dear," Mrs. Lemaire insisted, "you have my medical reports here with you. Read them, go on."

With shaking hands, Sophie opened the folder, briefly scanned the document and looked intently at the bottom line.

"Not infected," she read.

"There. There it is. I told you so."

Still, there something odd about it. "But here it says that you have antibodies compatible with the virus DH16N10..." Sophie thought aloud. "That means you came into contact with the virus..."

"...and I recovered."

Sophie frowned: "That's not possible. Nobody recovers."

The elderly woman spread her arms: "Well, I did."

Sophie stopped for a moment and leaned back against the cold wall of tunnel.

This was why this little old lady was the key to the vaccine, why it was in her blood, as Amanda said. Emma Lemaire was the only human being who had ever recovered from the dragon plague.

Amanda knew it, and the medical police had arrested her for this.

Sophie thought back about her colleague's last instructions: "Who is Jamie?" Sophie asked.

Mrs. Lemaire shook her head. "I don't know. Dr. Solarin only told me not to talk to anyone about my blood tests, and that soon she would take me to a safe place."

"And did you talk to anyone?"

Emma appeared offended: "Of course not! I'm old, but I can still understand when I must keep my mouth shut."

This meant that someone had betrayed Amanda. Who could have talked about it to the police? It seemed impossible that Amanda had let the secret slip. She was very reserved.

Sophie herself knew very little about Amanda's private life, except that she was single, lived in the third ring, and had gone to the best medical school when she was young... not much else, in fact.

Did she have brothers or sisters, were her parents still alive? Was there a significant other, maybe? And who was this mysterious Jamie?

Walking in the semi-darkness, Sophie's foot bumped into something.

She discovered that they had arrived at the end of the tunnel, and the object against which she had slammed was in fact a ladder, leading up to what looked like the cover of a manhole.

"We've arrived," Sophie announced in a flat voice. What a joy.

Emma looked puzzled: "Where are we going now?"

Why did she assume that there must be a plan? Sophie had no plan. As a matter of fact, she felt utterly lost.

"I don't know... I don't think we can go to my house," she said, "or yours either. We have to avoid crowded places, because they are probably swarming with medical police, so no train stations or anything like that. We have no money or documents," her voice cracked. " I don't know what to do," she said, dropping wearily on the ground next to the ladder.

It was cold and wet, but she felt exhausted.

Emma opened an old-fashioned handbag and pulled out a wallet: "I have something here... fifty, a hundred... two hundred credits," she announced.

"Wow!" Sophie exclaimed, looking up. "Why would you carry all that money around?"

Mrs. Lemaire shrugged. "Thieves have already broken into my apartment twice in the past year. It makes no sense to keep my money at home where it can be stolen."

"I see."

Actually, Sophie didn't think a handbag was a much safer alternative, but she refrained from pointing that out.

"Well, that does help... although I don't know where we might go without documents," Sophie reflected. "We would have to show IDs at an hotel."

Emma sighed, disappointed. "Mightn't they make an exception? Maybe... I don't know, someone you know... or maybe there are places where they don't ask too many questions?" she suggested after a pause.

Sophie tried to think. According to the law, carrying identification was mandatory virtually anywhere: food distribution, controls, etcetera. However, there were probably people who would make an exception, in disreputable places closer to the underground city than to the central rings of Europa, places frequented by people who lived outside the law. Sophie had never been to any of those places, but she had sometimes passed them by.

"I suppose we could try in the sixth or seventh ring."