ViraVax Read Free

Red Bartlett’s death, his teenage daughter, Sonja, was committed to a landing of the new Bushwhacker jungle fighter. The Bushwhacker, the enemy and the jungle were simulations but her glove and helmet controls were not. Just as she rolled under enemy fire to rocket their bridge, her visuals blacked out of her visor display, the pitch and yaw of her seat returned to straight-and-level and Sergeant Trethewey’s voice echoed in her helmet receiver.
    “You have company,” he said.
    His voice was flat, cold, nothing like his usual self.
    “Who?” she asked.
    Sonja’s stomach went cold. She had her private pilot’s license already at fifteen, but she had no authorization to be in this simulator seat, nor inside the military half of the airfield, for that matter.
    Before the sergeant could answer, a harsh voice asked, “Are you Sonja Bartlett?”
    Maybe it was the sudden change in Trethewey’s usually jovial demeanor, but she had a bad feeling about this one. She caught a glimpse of herself reflected on the blank screen of her visor: disheveled blonde hair coming out of its braid; sweat that her suit couldn’t keep up with stung her blue eyes. A red impression from her helmet’s visor seal would frame her freckled face.
    Not very presentable, she thought.
    Sonja lifted her visor and caught a glimpse of two armed figures dressed in black entering the sergeant’s control booth in the north wall. Her stomach lurched again.
    Sonja had been well educated in the hostage-taking politics of Costa Brava. The embassy held workshops on hostage survival on a monthly basis, and Sonja’s parents saw to it that she attended. Her friend Harry Toledo was also a regular.
    At their first session, Harry had joked, “Rule number one: Don’t put yourself in a situation where you’d make a desirable hostage.”
    Then Harry had nodded at the children of ambassadors and bankers and high-level military surrounding them in the auditorium.
    “This is exactly the kind of situation they tell us to avoid,” he said. “We’re supposed to hang out with invisible people, normal people.”
    “Normal?” she’d joked back. “What’s that?”
    Tonight, two men in black fatigues filled up the control booth and four more strode into the simulator room with their hard breathing and their stubby rifles. None of them pointed their weapons at her. She framed each one in turn as though they were inside the targeting square of her visor. At least one of them was a woman. Sergeant Trethewey, who had garnered her the simulator time, was gone.
    “It’s an EP drill, isn’t it?” she asked.
    No one answered.
    Always before, during one of ViraVax’s Extreme Precautions drills, they never actually contacted her. This part of their drill, securing personnel and dependents, was always simulated, mainly because she and her mother were the only dependents living away from the facility. For several years, they had been the only dependents, period. These days, ViraVax didn’t hire anyone encumbered by family or friends. Usually they simply called her mother to tell her the result and issue the “all-clear.”
    This time was very different; the men’s presence and their down-to-business eyes told her that.
    “Yes, I am Sonja Bartlett,” she admitted with an exasperated wave. “Is this a drill?”
    She pulled off her helmet and looked the leader in the eyes. They were light blue, like her own, and their gaze, ice-cold.
    “No,” he said. “This is not a drill. We are here to account for your presence and to hold you until further notice, nothing more.”
    Sonja secured her helmet and control gloves to the console, and stepped down from the simulator.
    “What happened?” she asked.
    “I can’t tell you that,” the leader said.
    The second, a woman, came up to stand beside him. Her gaze was all inspection and concern.
    “Well, then, who?” Sonja asked. “If you can’t tell me what, at least tell me who. Is it my father?”
    She had always been