CHAPTER 3
Orchid District
Marbella, Spain
It was the same dream, and that pleased Kate to no end. She almost felt as though she could control it now, like a video she could rewind and relive at will. It was the only thing that brought her joy anymore.
She lay in a bed in Gibraltar, on the second floor of a villa just steps from the shore. A cool breeze blew through the open doors to the veranda, pushing the thin white linen curtains into the room, then letting them fall back to the wall. The breeze seemed to drift in and retreat out in sync with the waves below, and with her long, slow breaths there in the bed. It was a perfect moment, all things in harmony, as if the entire world were a single heart, beating as one.
She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, not daring to close her eyes. David was asleep beside her, on his stomach. His muscular arm rested haphazardly across her stomach, covering most of the large scar there. She wanted to touch his arm, but she wouldn’t risk it—or any act that could end the dream.
She felt the arm move slightly. The subtle motion seemed to shatter the scene, like an earthquake shaking, then bringing down the walls and ceiling. The room shuddered one last time and faded to black, to the darkened, cramped “cell” she occupied in Marbella. The soft comfort of the queen bed was gone, and she lay again on the harsh mattress of the narrow cot. But… the arm was still there. Not David’s. A different arm. It was moving, reaching across her stomach. Kate froze. The hand wrapped around her, patted her pocket, then fumbled for her closed hand, trying to get the tube. She grabbed the thief’s wrist and twisted it as hard as she could.
A man screamed in pain as Kate stood, jerked the chain on the light above, and stared down at…
Martin.
“So they sent you.”
Her adoptive father struggled to get back to his feet. He was well past sixty, and the last few months had taken a toll on him physically. He looked haggard, but his voice was still soft, grandfatherly. “You know, you can be overly dramatic sometimes, Kate.”
“I’m not the one breaking into people’s rooms and patting them down in the dark.” She held the tube up. “Why do you want this so much? What’s going on here?”
Martin rubbed his wrist and squinted at her, as if the single light bulb swinging in the room was blinding him. He turned, grabbed a sack off the small table in the corner, and handed it to her. “Put this on.”
Kate turned it over. It wasn’t a sack at all—it was a floppy white sun hat, the type one of her fun but high-maintenance college friends might have worn to a horse race. Martin must have taken it from the remains of one of the Marbellan vacationers. “Why?” Kate asked.
“Can’t you just trust me?”
“Apparently I can’t.” She motioned to the bed.
Martin’s voice was flat, cold, and matter of fact. “It’s to hide your face. There are guards outside this building, and if they see you, they’ll take you into custody, or worse, shoot you on sight.” He walked out of the room.
Kate hesitated a moment, then followed him, clutching the hat at her side. “Wait. Where are you taking me?”
“You want some answers?”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “But I want to check on the boys before we go.”
Martin eyed her, then nodded.
Kate cracked the door to the boys’ small room and found them doing what they spent ninety-nine percent of their time doing: writing on the walls. For most seven- and eight-year-old boys, the scribblings would have been dinosaurs and soldiers, but Adi and Surya had created an almost wall-to-wall tapestry of equations and math symbols.
The two Indonesian children still displayed so many of the hallmark characteristics of autism. They were completely consumed with their work; neither noticed Kate enter the room. Adi was balancing on a chair he had placed on one of the desks, reaching up, writing on one of the last empty places on the wall.
Kate rushed to him and pulled him off the chair. He waved the pencil in the air and protested in words Kate couldn’t make out. She moved the chair back to its rightful place: in front of the desk, not on top of it.
She squatted down and held Adi by the shoulders. “Adi, I’ve told you: do not stack furniture and stand on it.”
“We’re out of room.”
She turned to Martin. “Get them something to write on.”
He looked at her incredulously.
“I’m serious.”
He left and Kate again focused on the boys. “Are you hungry?”
“They brought sandwiches earlier.”
“What are you working on?”
“Can’t tell you, Kate.”
Kate nodded seriously. “Right. Top secret.”
Martin returned and handed her two yellow legal pads.
Kate reached over and took Surya by the arm to make sure she had his attention. She held up the pads. “From now on, you write on these, understand?”
Both boys nodded and took the pads. They flipped through them, inspecting each page for marks. When they were satisfied, they wandered back to their desks, climbed in the chairs, and resumed working quietly.
Kate and Martin retreated from the room without another word. Martin led Kate down the hall. “Do you think it’s wise to let them go on like that?” Martin asked.
“They don’t show it, but they’re scared. And confused. They enjoy math, and it takes their minds off things.”
“Yes, but is it healthy to let them obsess like that? Doesn’t it make them worse off?”
Kate stopped walking. “Worse off than what?”
“Now, Kate—”
“The world’s most successful people are simply obsessed with something—something the world needs. The boys have found something productive that they love. That’s good for them.”
“I only meant… that it would be disruptive for them if we had to move them.”
“Are we moving them?”
Martin sighed and looked away. “Put your hat on.” He led her down another hallway and swiped a key card at the door at the end. He swung it open and the rays of sunlight almost blinded Kate. She threw her arm up and tried to keep up with Martin.
Slowly, the scene came into focus. They had exited a one-story building right on the coast, at the edge of the resort compound. To her right, three whitewashed resort towers rose high above the lush tropical trees and previously well-maintained grounds. The glitzy hotel towers struck a harsh contrast to the twenty-foot tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire that lined the development. In the light of day, this place looked like a resort that had been made into a prison. Were the fences to keep people in—or out? Or both?
With each passing step, the strong odor that hung in the air seemed to grow more pungent. What was it? Sickness? Death? Maybe, but there was something else. Kate scanned the grounds near the bases of the towers, searching for the source. A series of long white tents covered tables where people worked with knives, processing something. Fish. That was the smell, but only part of it.
“Where are we?” Kate asked.
“The Marbella Orchid Ghetto.”
“An Orchid District?”
Martin resumed walking on a path that led to another building along the beach. “The people inside call it a ghetto, but yes.”
Kate jogged to catch up. She held her hat in place. Seeing this place and the fences had instantly made her take Martin’s words more seriously.
She glanced back at the spa building they had exited. Its walls and roof were covered in something—a dull gray-black sheeting. Lead was Kate’s first thought, but it looked so odd—the small, gray, lead-encased building by the coast, sitting in the shadow of the gleaming white towers.
As they moved along the path, Kate caught more glimpses of the camp. In every building, on every floor, there were a few people standing, looking out the sliding glass doors, but there wasn’t a single person on a balcony. Then she saw why: a jagged silver scar ran the length of the metal frame of every door. They had been welded shut.
“Where are you taking me?”
Martin motioned to the single-story building ahead. “To the hospital.”
The “hospital” had clearly been a large beachside restaurant on the resort grounds. They passed an abandoned beach bar, and Kate noticed that the shelves that would have held liquor bottles were empty. At the other end of the camp, beyond the white towers, a convoy of loud diesel trucks roared to the gate and stopped. Kate paused to watch them. The trucks were old, like something from World War II, and they hid their cargo behind flopping green canvases pulled over the ridges of their spines. The lead driver shouted to the guards, and the chain-link gate parted to let the trucks pass.
Kate noticed blue flags hanging from the guard towers on each side of the gate. At first she thought it was the UN flag—it was light blue with a white design in the middle. But the white design in the center wasn’t a white globe surrounded by olive branches. It was an orchid. The white petals were symmetrical, but the red pattern that spread out from the center was uneven, like rays of sunlight peeking out from behind a darkened moon during a solar eclipse.
The trucks pulled to a stop just beyond the gate and soldiers began dragging people out—men, women, and even a few children. Each person’s hands were bound, and many struggled with the guards, shouting in Spanish.
“They’re rounding up survivors,” Martin whispered, as if they could hear him from this distance. “It’s illegal to be caught outside.”
“Why?” Another thought struck Kate. “There are survivors—who aren’t taking Orchid?”
“Yes. But… they aren’t what we expected. You’ll see.” He led her the rest of the way to the restaurant, and after a few words with the guard, they passed inside—into a plastic-lined decontamination chamber. Sprinkler nozzles at the top and sides opened and sprayed them down with a mist that stung slightly. For the second time, Kate was glad to have the hat. In the corner of the plastic chamber, the red miniature traffic light changed from red to green, and Martin pushed through the flaps. He paused just outside the threshold. “You won’t need the hat. Everyone here knows who you are.”
As Kate pulled the hat from her head, she got her first full view of the large room—what had been the dining room. She could barely believe the scene that spread out before her. “What is this?”
Martin spoke softly. “The world isn’t what they describe on the radio. This is the true shape of the Atlantis Plague.”