Plague

time.
    “Hold up,” he said.
    “Aw, is Captain Ahab tired of rowing?”
    “You’ve got good eyes, Elise, look over there.” Quinn pointed toward the barrier across a half mile of water.
    “What? It’s still there.”
    “Not the barrier. The water. Look at the water.”
    The four of them shielded their eyes from the sun and stared. “Huh,” Quinn said at last. “Does that or does that not look like there’s a breeze blowing over there? It’s a little choppy.”
    “Yeah,” Cigar agreed. “Weird, huh?”
    Quinn nodded thoughtfully. It was something new. Something very strange. He would tell Albert about it when they got into town.
    “Okay, enough with that. Let’s get back on those oars.” The other boats were catching up to them. Quinn could see each of them in turn stop and stare at the clear evidence of wind.
    “What’s it mean?” Ben asked.
    Quinn shrugged. “That’s above my pay grade, as my dad used to say. I’ll let Albert and Astrid figure that out. Me, I’m just a dumb fisherman,” he said.
    “Oh, look,” Elise teased. “I see an oar with no one pulling it.”
    Quinn laughed. He seated himself properly, braced his feet, and grabbed the available oar. His back, like those of all the fishing fleet, was thick with muscle.
    He was happy. This life made him happy. The sun, the salt water, the smell of fish. The backbreaking work. It all made him happy.
    It was simple. It was important.
    Quinn thought about the breeze blowing across the water. There was nothing sinister about a nice breeze. And yet he had the feeling it spelled trouble.
    Dahra Baidoo had seven new cases of flu. That made thirteen in all. The so-called hospital rang with the percussion of coughing.
    No one had died in the night.
    But no one had gotten well yet, either. Lana’s touch did not heal this illness. Which meant Dahra was no longer in the business of keeping kids comfortable until Lana came around and made everything better: she was now in the business of trying to understand this sickness.
    She took temperatures. She kept more-or-less careful charts showing the progression of the sickness.
    She tried not to think about Jennifer’s story. Jennifer wasn’t backing off her tale: she had seen the other Jennifer cough herself to death.
    Dahra also tried not to think about what it meant if illness could develop an immunity to Lana.
    A kid named Pookie was her worst case right at the moment. She stared at the thermometer in her hand, not quite believing it—106 degrees. She had never seen a number that high.
    Pookie was shaking like he was freezing. He was no longer able to answer questions sensibly. He had started talking to someone who was not exactly there, talking about how he didn’t want to go to school because he hadn’t finished his report.
    And his cough was getting louder and more violent.
    The flu had laughed at the Tylenol she gave Pookie. His fever had burned right through it. Whether or not he developed some kind of killing cough, he would die of fever if it rose much higher. She had to bring it down.
    The book suggested an ice bath. The odds of that were precisely zero. No water, let alone ice. If Albert didn’t arrange a water delivery soon, kids would be falling out from thirst, not even waiting to die of fever or cough.
    Dahra made a decision. Ellen was there helping out, along with one of the new kids from the island, Virtue. She wished she had time to talk to Virtue: Dahra’s parents were from Africa. And so was Virtue himself.
    “We have to cool him down,” Dahra said. “Virtue? Hold down the fort here, okay? We’re going to the beach.”
    Ellen and Dahra maneuvered Pookie into a wheelbarrow. The three of them made an odd procession down San Pablo Avenue to the beach.
    Crossing the sand was the hard part. But finally they made it to the lacy surf and set the sick kid down. Water surged around him.
    Not an ice bath, maybe, but close enough. She figured the cold salt water should drain away some of the heat inside Pookie’s body.
    “There,” Ellen said. “Hopefully he can walk back on his own.”
    Dahra flopped onto the sand beside Ellen. Ellen said, “You heard about Drake, right?”
    “Him escaping? Yeah. Don’t worry, Sam will get him.”
    Ellen shook her head. “Sam’s out of town. Albert got him to go off for water. Or something like that.”
    “Sam’s gone?” Dahra looked nervously over her shoulder. No reason Drake would come after her. But Drake didn’t need a