Rogue Delivery

Rogue Delivery By Gareth Vaughn Hair still damp, Curtis chopped the fresh dill and rinsed the knife. Wednesday was bagel day. The toaster oven dinged and he pulled out the warm half of bagel, spread cream cheese over it, added the dill and smoked salmon. The way his apartment was set up, he could see the television from the breakfast bar if he sat at the end seat, so that was where he ate every day, staying informed with the latest news before packing lunch and getting his shoes on. The routine would be unbearable to some people, but Curtis liked it. It was predictable, got him out of the door at the right time every day, and most importantly, made him feel like he actually had his s**t together. He got out coconut water and slid into the seat, thinking how far he’d come in the past few years. He was a completely new man—no one could possibly guess he’d once been someone who couldn’t get out of his home, or left dirty everything around. He had his life turned around. He was going places. He had a laboratory job that promised to get him advancement, he paid his bills and was nearly out of debt, and he was finally at a place where he could start thinking about goals for himself other than “avoid being a colossal failure.” If only he hadn’t made watching the news part of his morning routine. Curtis bit into the bagel, the weather forecast giving way to an update on a mysterious outbreak sweeping the country. The worst of it seemed confined to the Midwest, with at least six confirmed cases in nearby Peoria. Curtis frowned, his predictably delicious breakfast turning to tasteless mush in his mouth as dread and then shock burrowed their way through him. The doctors were stumped. The reporters warned people to wash their hands, properly cook their food, and other basics of cleanliness and hygiene, but Curtis was focused on the locations, the symptoms. This couldn’t be happening. Breakfast forgotten, he grabbed up his keys, his phone. His shoes were on and he was out the door so fast he didn’t even pack himself lunch. Curtis had to get to work now. * * * * Lyndon was supposed to be back home by now, stripping off his clothes and crashing into bed after unluckily catching a double shift, but no, here he was on really-the-last-courier-run-this-time-then-he-could-go, and he was too tired to even be pissed about it. He hated days like these, when all he’d have time for was to sleep, shower, and find something to eat before hauling his ass up and doing it again. But he needed a job, and this one at least meant he didn’t really have coworkers, just interactions picking up and dropping off s**t. Still, the corn outside the windows confused him. He’d been driving a while now, and he couldn’t remember coming this far out of town before to pick anything medical-related up. There must be a new clinic up this road somewhere. First Lyndon heard about it. Not like people told him about s**t anyway. And right now he was too tired to care one way or another, any part of his mind he could spare daydreaming about bed. He thought something was weird when he found the place, down a long drive off the main road, and had to announce himself at a gate. There was an armed security guard, and a series of large buildings beyond. Lyndon didn’t get a good feeling about any of this, but he rarely allowed himself to back out of anything for fear of looking weak, so he drove on through when the bar was raised and focused on making this go as fast as possible. There was a lot right behind the gate, where a man stood shuffling from foot to foot, cart containing the containers to be transported next to him. Another strange thing, that the specimens came to Lyndon and not the other way around. But at this point he wasn’t going to question anything he could just let slide. He parked and got out. “This it?” he asked, but the man was already opening the back to the van and loading the containers—without attached paperwork, Lyndon noticed—himself. Lyndon frowned, irritation managing to find a way through his exhaustion. “Come on. Paperwork.” “You don’t already have it?” asked the man, not pausing. Lyndon crossed his arms. Nope, this s**t really wasn’t right. And now the man was glancing over his shoulder at the looming buildings like he was waiting for them to fall over and crush him. “Look, we both know we have to do this the right way. If you forgot it…” Lyndon trailed off as the other man shut the door, posture far too tense. “f**k,” he muttered. Lyndon stared at him, considering he might be more tired than he thought. This man was well dressed, tie and all that s**t, and he was swearing, and trying to—what, smuggle some biological who-the-hell-knew-what to…where? Lyndon couldn’t figure it out. He was just supposed to take these containers to a local hospital laboratory. But none of what was going on here fit with something so normal. He opened his mouth to ask what was going on, then half-turned as the man took a step back. In the small building behind Lyndon, the guard was on the phone. “We have to go,” said the man. “Now.” Lyndon frowned. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, but I’m not going to mess with the procedure. You get me the documents, I’ll take this over. Are those containers even labeled? I can’t show up with random biological things with no documentation—I’ll get fired.” “You don’t understand,” said the man, and went for the driver’s door.