poliovirus

Avalon 9.9 California Dreaming, part 6 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Tony, Nanette, and Sukki were ready to get out of the hospital as soon as the sun rose on the next day.  Tony finished his book and started pacing, waiting for the others to show up.  Nanette and Sukki relaxed in their room. Apparently, they stayed up most of the night talking about one thing or another.

The travelers agreed to stay a week to ten days so the police could catalogue all the destruction they caused, even if they were not the ones who actually caused it.  It involved a couple of interviews and lots of police paperwork that made Lockhart laugh.

“I used to have to fill out things like that, in triplicate.”

They actually stayed two weeks so they could see the premier of the movie their friends were in.  Lockhart and Katie took Sukki to the movies three or four times before that.  They introduced her to popcorn and introduced Tony and Nanette to talking pictures.  When they saw one in technicolor, they all felt amazed.

The couple got the travelers tickets to the premier.  They had a wonderful time. The man said the critics liked the movie well enough in the screening.  The woman said, now they would see if the audience liked it as well.

The next day, Mishka took them all to a sound stage.  Lincoln remarked that they had not been bothered by a time displacement since the time in the alien woods.

“And I don’t think you will,” Mishka said.  Doctor Mishka brought them all to an isolated area where they had lights but no cameras.  She said the stage was not being used that day, and she had already warned the security guards that she would be borrowing it for the day, and she did not want to be interrupted.”

“Polio research or training?” the head of security asked.

“I will be experimenting, so keep everyone away,” she answered.

David and Gabriella were both there to watch and run interference if they did get interrupted.  When the travelers said they were ready, Mishka spoke as briefly as she could.  She reminded Lockhart and Lincoln that the Storyteller, her next life, had memory problems.  Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory messed things up in the ancient days when he traveled to the days of the Princess.”  Lockhart interrupted for those who did not know, and he realized of those present, only he and Lincoln knew, so he explained a little.

“Unless something of historical importance is happening, the Kairos does not know he has other lifetimes or anything about the Men in Black or anything else.  As far as he knows, he is just living an ordinary, normal life.  It must be hard, though, because the memory block is not perfect.  Past and future things keep leaking through.  That must make it very hard to function as a normal person.  When I first met him in Michigan, he only remembered the Princess, and that was not so bad.  When I met him again some years later, when the Vordan came to Earth, he got overwhelmed with the sudden influx of the memories from too many lives.  He almost became incapacitated. “

“Yes,” Mishka said.  “But he cannot tell you what you need to hear unless you screw up and become yourselves a threat to history.  I am hoping this advanced warning will prevent that.”  She continued with her speech until Katie interrupted.

“I was thinking about my identification that Gabriella so kindly typed.  I do have a doctorate in Ancient and Medieval cultures and technologies, but I would be afraid at this point to teach those classes because, frankly, I have learned better with some, maybe many things over the past five years.  I think I need to stick to my desk at the pentagon and maybe build a small department to go out on archeological digs, especially.  Someone needs to make sure the things people dig up are safe for human consumption.”

“We used to have a person who did that, but she retired recently,” Lockhart said.  “We haven’t filled that position.”

“Then it is settled…” Katie began, speaking primarily to Lockhart.

“Ahem.”  Mishka took back the conversation.  “That may work,” Mishka said.  “Alien lifeforms are not proven until Jennifer flies a science team to the asteroid belt, and even that comes back as grainy videos and digital information that plenty of people claim is all fake.  Keeping alien artifacts from disturbing the natural course and progress of the human race over the next hundred and fifty years or so will be important.  Alien technology discovered before humanity is ready for such things can skew everything.  But to continue…”

Mishka got to a point where she finally said something practical.  “Now, I don’t know if this is going to work.  Me being in the same room with the time gate is difficult enough.  It has not been long since I figured out how to do that, and the technique is a bit shaky.  Projecting the appropriate gate from the Heart of Time on Avalon to this studio stage is another thing entirely, but here goes.”  Doctor Mishka closed her eyes and held up her hands.  Something rumbled.  For a few seconds, it felt like a real California earthquake.  A great flash of light made people blink and turn away, and they heard Mishka pushed back to fall on her rump.  “Ouch,” she said, before the gate stabilized.  “Let us hope the next two are not so dramatic,” she added.

“Just the one gate,” David said.  “She hoped to have three gates side by side which is why she wanted such a big, enclosed space.”

“Hush,” Doctor Mishka quieted everyone.  She nodded and appeared to be listening intently before she spoke.  “We will have to do this one at a time,” she said.  “This gate is 1914.  We will do Elder Stow next and then the regular gate to 2015 if we can bring it here.”

Lockhart, Katie, and Lincoln all looked at each other, and Katie asked.  “What do you mean Elder Stow next?”

Lincoln added, “I assumed he came from 2010 like the rest of us.”

“Ah, no,” Elder Stow said.  “In the past, especially the deep past, your time and mine seemed so close together, and so far away, it hardly mattered.  I am sorry.  As the time drew closer, I felt I should say something, but it never seemed the right time.  You see, my two children and I were picked up in 1932, a couple of years before now.  I am ashamed to say my Father and Mother started working with a certain fellow in Germany.  I have heard you speak of the man and some of what he does or did.  I am sorry.  I hope to rectify the situation when I get there.  I am sorry.”

“His return date is early 1941,” Mishka said.  “We have discussed it, thoroughly.  It would not be right for him, at this time, to interrupt what has already happened from his life perspective.  Changing events now might well alter the future, and that is what we are trying to avoid.  He might even get shunted off into a parallel earth and have no way back to this reality.  And unlike regular attempts at time travel, the math of energy expenditures and such, that I really don’t understand but Martok understands, he will not automatically be drawn back into his correct time at some point.  In fact, he might accidentally fall through a time gate on Earth or out there somewhere, and find himself who-knows-where, in the middle of some atomic war.  He won’t age the number of years difference or get younger because he will still be out of sync with his own time zone.  It would be a mess—a potential mess.”

“Take a breath,” Decker said.

Mishka smiled.  “I haven’t done that since Heidelberg.  You people are so nice, I feel like a talker again for the first time in years.”

“In any case,” Elder Stow spoke to finish the story.  It came out like a confession. “My companions and I were set down in the days of Danna, the Celtic goddess.  We saw the chaos going on there and quickly scooted back in time.  It took a bit to figure out we were going backwards, not forwards in time, and I thought that perhaps we could go back to the time of the flood and somehow hold on to our place and land on the Earth.  I saw three times when my Gott-Druk people returned to the Earth with no good intentions.  In Tetamon’s day, the Elenar were present, and I felt even the first time through that somehow my people were on the wrong side.  I found us again in Wlvn’s day, but the Gott-Druk there, the meat eaters… Even I felt they needed to die.  The third time, we passed through Odelion’s island peacefully.  We got all the way to Saphira’s time, but the huntress caught us and explained that the time gates ended at the Tower of Babel.  The Heart of Time began at that time.  The gates did not extend all the way to the flood.”

“So, you gave up that dream,” Sukki said.

“Not the dream, but that way of achieving the dream, certainly.  We turned around and came forward, and found our people, where a scout ship landed on the small island in Odelion’s day.  That whole trip took us about four years.  You understand, we did not move as quickly or efficiently as all of us moved coming forward in time.  We did not have horses, among other things.  It took months of negotiations to settle matters and make a plan.  I knew about the Kairos by then, and knew he had to be removed from the equation.  We went to do that very thing and you people showed up, and the Elenar showed up.  My children died, and when you left the island, I followed with every intention of killing you.”  Elder Stow sighed.  “But I have learned some things on this journey as I have said.  One is that forgiveness is a good thing.  I sleep better and the food does not grumble in my stomach.  We Gott-Druk should let go of our grudges.  Stupid and stubborn is not the way to grow fat and full of wisdom.  Another thing is touch.  Hugs are good.”  He reached out and hugged Sukki, and everyone else.

“So,” Decker said rather loudly since he was not really a hugger.  “Having all hugged, we are ready to go.  Any idea what we will face when we get there?”

“Heidelberg,” Doctor Mishka said.  “I was in residency at the University Hospital.  You will see.  Go on.”

There were more hugs and some tears, but Decker, Nanette, and Tony went, disappearing in time.

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MONDAY

Episode 10 July Crisis will be four posts long: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday. In fact, episodes 11 and 12 will also be four posts long, so don’t miss the Thursday posts. Thus, the last three episodes in book 9, the end of the Avalon series, are shorter, but, well, you will see. In the meanwhile, Happy Reading

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Avalon 9.9 California Dreaming, part 4 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Polio,” Lincoln complained. “I got the polio vaccine as a kid.”

“We did, but they didn’t” Decker said.

“I see the antibodies,” Elder Stow said.  “I’m not sure, but I don’t believe you can even spread the disease.  I don’t see the same reaction in Sukki, Tony, or Nanette.  They are carriers.”

Nurse David took a step back.  “It can be transmitted through feces and sometimes saliva,” he said.  “Mishka went to Orange County because there is a polio outbreak there and it appears to be spreading to Los Angeles.”  He picked up the phone and made a call.  It took them an hour to locate Doctor Mishka.

“The Masters,” Doctor Mishka said, plainly.  “I got one in the 1930 outbreak and shut down their gain-of-function lab, but two of the doctors got away.”

“Doctor Malory?” Lockhart asked.  “It has been a week since our arrival in this time zone.”

“Yes, Malory and Doctor Stinson.  I tracked one to the other side of the Rockies, then flew back quickly to LA when I got a call. I thought they would be here where the outbreak started, but no such luck.  Get the three to Los Angeles General and get them into beds.  I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Los Angeles General?” Lockhart asked and David nodded.  “Meet you at the hospital.”

“Tell them they will be uncomfortable for a while but do not worry.  I can replicate the appropriate antibodies to kill the disease before complications set in.”

She hung up and Lockhart turned to Katie. “I hope we did not infect that nice couple.  Those movies are great.”

David took the phone and called the ambulance.

By nine o’clock that evening, Doctor Mishka had not yet arrived.  The nurse started saying things like the patients are resting comfortably and they should go home.  “There will not be much change before morning.”  Lockhart and Decker said they were staying.  Elder Stow and Katie agreed.  They sent Lincoln to fetch supper, so they were all fed and only needed to find a comfortable chair where they could get some sleep.

Mishka showed up at midnight and went straight to Elder Stow.  “Scanner.”  She stuck out her hand.  He gave it to her but squinted as he did.  “The lab must be in Los Angeles.  Doctors Stinson and Malory have to be here as well at this point.  Hopefully, we will catch them at the lab.”  She sat quietly and worked, quickly trading places with Martok the Bospori so he could work directly on the device.

“That is remarkable the way you do that,” Katie said.  “It is like you become a completely different person, even if you are the same person on the inside.”

“Still me,” Martok said in his deep alien voice.  “It is just me in a life that has not even been born yet.”  He grinned.

“You know,” Lockhart said.  “It used to bother me when he said things like that.  Now it just feels like old news.”

“There,” Martok said, and traded back to Doctor Mishka.  She turned on the scanner and frowned.  There were at least a hundred places in the city, any one of which might be the lab.  “Looks like we have our work cut out for us.”  She looked at Elder Stow.  He touched something on the scanner.

“Now they are recorded, and you can call them up anytime,” he said.

She nodded and turned to Katie and Decker.  “Let’s go see our patients before the disease worsens.”

“Shouldn’t they sleep?” Katie asked.  Mishka did not answer, and she did not stop walking.

When they got in the room where Tony slept, he woke right up and moaned a little before he sat up.  Doctor Mishka held out her hand and said the word, “Bag.”  A medical bag, such as doctors used to carry in the thirties appeared in her hand and she rummaged through it to find what she wanted.  The jar had any number of pills in it.  She got one and gave it to Tony with a glass of water and instructions.  “Stay here and rest tomorrow.  You can get back on your feet the following day.”

“Boring,” Tony complained.  Lockhart handed him the book he picked up in the lobby. It was Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man.

“I never read the book,” Lockhart admitted.  “Tell me if it is any good.”

Nanette and Sukki shared the room next door.  They claimed to be sisters, but the nurses put up a stink.  At first, the staff wanted to separate the black woman and put her in a completely different ward, but this was the only ward still set up for polio patients since the last outbreak four years earlier.  Fortunately, it was not presently full, so they let the sisters room together.  Unfortunately, the ward would be overflowing once the current outbreak took hold.

Nanette and Sukki got the same pills and instructions.  They did not complain.  Now that Sukki would be going with Katie and Lockhart and Nanette would be going to 1914, a hundred years earlier, the sisters wanted to spend some time together, even if Boston could not be with them.

When they returned to the waiting area, Doctor Mishka made the rest of them take a pill, except Elder Stow.  “I do not expect the immunization of the gods to diminish for as long as you live, but the influenza mutation we call polio is relatively new.  Some variants go back to fifteen hundred BC, but modern Polio is since about 1650-1700, about Elizabeth’s day and the founding of the modern Men in Black organization.”

“Is it alien?” Lincoln asked.

“No,” Doctor Mishka said.  “Pox is alien.  Chicken pox, smallpox, monkey pox.  But Earth is quite capable of developing hostile bacteria and viruses.  Polio is essentially an influenza mutation.  We had the Spanish Flu.  Polio is less deadly but more debilitating.  I believe there is covid in your future.  All viruses.”

“Why is Elder Stow exempt?” Katie asked.

“He had a more advanced vaccine.  I know.  You all had the polio vaccines, unlike our patients, but yours is not so strong.  It requires booster shots.  Consider this pill your booster.  Now, I want you all to go home and rest.  I would invite you all to my home to rest, but my son is getting into fights in school and my husband is due home.”

“What—”

“He is a long-haul truck driver, a far cry from being a retired army major in the war. You see, he was a German major.  Now, sadly, it is beginning to look like war again on the horizon and he is making noises about going home to Prussia.”  Doctor Mishka shook her head.  “We were enemies in the war.  He got wounded, and, well, sometimes things don’t work out like you expect.  Go get rooms near the studio.  I will meet you there first thing in the morning.”

###

First thing in studio land meant sunrise.  The lighting was often best at that time of day.  They met outside the gate so they could walk in together.  Doctor Mishka got Gabriella, the in-house LPN and part time medical secretary to type up the list of places and addresses with two carbon copies.  It took about an hour.  The list carried over to the second page, so she stapled them together.  Doctor Mishka went through the list and circled a third of the places, with addresses in red.  She circled another third in regular black pencil.  Lockhart and Katie got the ones circled in pencil, and Gabriella would drive, though Lockhart said he knew how to drive a stick shift.  Elder Stow and Lincoln went with her RN, David.  Decker came with Mishka, and she sounded like she had some things to discuss with the man before she let him go to 1914.

“Like no betting on sporting events where I already know the outcome.”

“Back to the Future,” Lockhart said with a smile.

“Something like that,” Mishka said, and added, “If you find Stinson or Malory, or the lab, call out on your watch communicators.  We should not be out of range from each other.”

“I keep forgetting we have these things,” Lincoln said.

“We all do,” Lockhart agreed.

After that, it did not take long to begin the search.

###

David, Lincoln, and Elder Stow crossed the first one off their list.  David did not imagine they would find a gain of function lab at the university, but Lincoln said you never know.  In his day, most of the true research departments in the country were university related.

Elder Stow did say, “They are making good progress on radiation and uranium testing.  I did not imagine it this early.  In ten years, they might split the atom.”

“1945,” Lincoln said, and then paused.  How could Elder Stow not know this?

###

“It was a longshot,” Doctor Mishka said as she returned to her car and banged on the car roof.  “Beverly Hills High School has some interesting equipment for a high school.”

“I got plenty of stares,” Decker said.  “Hard to concentrate when you have people looking over your shoulder.”

“Some of these kids have probably never seen a black person before in their whole lives, except maybe the servants,” Mishka said, and when she got in the driver’s side, she waited for Decker to get in before she continued.  “Good thing you went full military dress uniform, Colonel.  Otherwise, I doubt they would have let you passed the door.”

“It is what I wore on the train from Omaha.  Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I can accept the fact that these people are not really racist, they are just ignorant.  I am willing to accommodate some to avoid the hassles that come with ignorance.”

“Very well put,” Mishka said as she started out toward the next stop on the list.  “You know you will have to do a lot of accommodating in 1914.  That is just fifty years post-slavery.  People are just not that fast to learn.”

“I understand.”

Avalon 9.9 California Dreaming, part 3 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Come two o’clock, the eight travelers followed the couple through the gate.  “They are making some H. G. Wells time travel movie,” the man told the security guard.  “They need some costume shots at the last minute.  That is why you don’t have them down on your list.”

The security guard did have something.  “I have a note for Mister and Major Lockhart.  The doctor said she returned early from her out-of-town conference because she had an emergency call to the Orange County Hospital.  I don’t know the emergency, but she may be gone for a while.  Make yourselves at home.”

“Major Lockhart?” the man asked Lockhart, but Lockhart pointed at Katie.

“My wife is a major in the marine corps.  In the future, you know.”

The woman looked happy.  “I love this modern world.”

The man pointed at the woman.  “Montana farm girl.”  He paused to see that he was talking to Decker.  “And a black marine colonel.”

“I love it,” the woman shouted.

“She’s a Democrat,” the man confided to Decker, rightly assuming that Decker was a Republican.  Decker laughed.  “So, Mister Lockhart, you aren’t playing a military officer?”

“Men in Black.  Assistant director.”  When the man had no idea what he meant, he added, “I hunt aliens.”

The man shook his head.  “You try to pitch this to Thalberg, and he will have you ejected from the lot.  Mayer won’t go for it either unless you have some dancing girls.”

“Selznik?” the woman asked.

“Not even him.  Too complicated.  You need a good plot, like by Dashiell Hammett, and stay away from the little green men and mermaids.  No one will ever believe it if you make a film with mermaids.”

At the moment, Katie was explaining to Sukki that the street they walked down was not honestly made of buildings.  “They are mostly false fronts just painted to look real.”  She paused when she saw three workmen trying to raise a grand piano with ropes and pulleys.  She imagined the second floor of the building was just another false front, but maybe not.  Of course, Sukki wanted to go over to the building to look in the window and see what Katie meant by false front.

One of the workers moved to warn her away from that spot and Katie grabbed her to keep her from walking under the piano.  Having the piano fall on her head was one cliché they did not need to do.

Everything changed all at once.

The lot looked suddenly like a war zone, changing around them, and the couple, and the workman who let out a shout like an enraged elephant, went with the travelers.  Red and bright white energy beams shot back and forth across the street ahead of them, where the buildings, real buildings, looked like they had been bombed to rubble.

“Everyone get down.”

“Everyone down.”

“Get down,”

They all scrambled behind a wall into what looked like it had once been a kitchen.  The travelers pulled their guns and got ready to defend the group, but they did not know who to shoot, or whose side they should be on.

Four human looking men jogged up to get behind the same wall.  One stayed by what used to be a window, but the other three faced the travelers and their guests.  They all touched something on their shoulders and the full head and face coverings they wore retracted revealing one old man, one woman with short hair, and one young black man who spoke.

“Who are you people?  This whole area was supposed to be evacuated before the fighting began.”

“Who are we fighting?” Decker asked.

“We are time travelers who stumbled into your battle,” Lockhart said.

“My ancestor was said to be a time traveler,” the black man said and stared hard at Decker.

“Time travel is mathematically impossible, sir,” the woman said.

“The Duba are coming,” the man by the window shouted.

Helmets went back on, and the soldiers ran to the wall.  The travelers joined them as Elder Stow shouted.

“Decker Wall established.”

Something like octopuses in armor came floating across the street, firing their white heat weapons.  Those energy strikes began to bounce off Elder Stow’s wall, before the octopuses themselves came to the wall and could go no further.  The corresponding fire from the humans, including the travelers, had no such restriction.  The octopuses did not seem to know enough to retreat when their charge stalled.  They started to be killed, and it did not take long to finish them.

The young black man lowered his helmet again and said something like a shout at Decker and Nanette, but the voice got cut off and everyone found themselves back on the studio lot.

“Time displacement,” Katie called it, as the workman made that elephant sound.  They heard another call.

“People.  Photographer.”  Someone did not sound happy.

“You might sell that idea,” the woman spoke up first.

“I smell a story there,” the man agreed.

“People.  We can’t do a photo shoot without my actors,” the shout came from down the way.

“Hark.”  The man posed with a hand to his ear.  “I hear the call of the publicity train.  Track twenty-five.  All aboard.”

The woman pulled herself together.  “That building with the red cross on it.  That is the doctor’s office,” she pointed and turned to shout.  “Coming.”  She turned one last time to Nanette.  “Your guns are real, aren’t they?”

Nanette nodded and Tony said, “Time travel is not always safe.”

The man nodded.  “Anywhere else in the world would be a big problem, but in Hollywood, people assume everything is a prop.  Come along Missus C.”

They walked off together, the woman saying something in the man’s ear.  The travelers turned to the doctor’s office, but Sukki had to pause.  That movement through time shook something up, even if they did not move at all and the future time area moved to them.  She threw up by the door.  Nanette swallowed her own bile.  Tony watched, like he was just thinking the same thing.

“Quick,” Katie said.  “Let’s get her inside.”

A man met them in the waiting room and directed Sukki and Katie to the bathroom.  Tony collapsed to a chair and said he felt tired, and he had a headache.  Nanette agreed with him, but also held her stomach.  Decker helped her to sit.

“David Brine.  I’m Doctor Mishka’s nurse,” the man said as he felt Nanette’s forehead, looking for fever.  He moved to Tony and asked, “Any sore throat?  Any trouble breathing?”

“A little,” Tony said.

“How about you?” David asked Lockhart, Decker, Elder Stow, and Lincoln.  “Any influenza-like symptoms?”  Lockhart and Decker shook their heads.  Lincoln, a bit of a hypochondriac, looked like he might develop symptoms if he thought about it too much.  Elder Stow already had his scanner out and the diagnosis attachment. With that, he could analyze things down to the atomic level.  In this case, he could search Tony, Nanette, and Sukki for hostile bacteria or viruses.

“I thought we were immunized against everything,” Lincoln complained.

“We are,” Lockhart answered.  “But Sukki was made human when we picked up Tony and Nanette.  I don’t know how much protection those three received before we moved out of range of the gods.”

Katie came out with Sukki who looked flush and needed to sit, and Katie added, “I remember Constantinople.  That doctor thought we would carry and spread the plague.”

“Doctor Malory,” Lincoln and Decker said at the same time to identify the suspect in 1934.

Elder Stow turned his scanner on Lockhart and then Lincoln before he spoke.  “We are all infected.”  He checked Decker and Katie.  “You call it Poliovirus.”

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MONDAY

Polio stops the travelers in their tracks. They try to find the  source of the outbreak and run into another serious time displacement. Until Monday, Happy Reading.

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