The 50/50 Vaccine

Chapter 17

Two months later

We’ve had a steady flow of vaccine survivors over the past few months. We’ve welcomed more than we’ve had to turn away for failing their intake interviews, but at least I’ve perfected my welcome speech and tour route. We’ve also decided to set a schedule for people to come in. I know it’s not necessarily fair, as Lexi and I arrived in the middle of the night, but one day we had arrivals staggered throughout the day from one in the morning until midnight.

Now I go in at seven in the morning, and the tours begin at eight. We do one every two hours, with a thirty-minute lunch break around noon. The final tour is at four, then we do a quick debrief meeting as a team before going home for the day. We always debrief to ensure all information and numbers are entered into the database. Since we have been telling more people about our facility, our numbers have increased exponentially, and we’re running out of apartments to house survivors. There’s talk about constructing a second building to house more vaccine survivors.

“Good morning, Mandy,” Nolan calls across the parking lot.

“Good morning. Are you getting off the night shift or just coming in?” I asked as we approached each other for a friendly hug.

“Just clocked out. Time to go to bed. Have a good day, I’ll swing by this Sunday afternoon if that’s good.” Nolan replies.

“Sunday is fine, we’ll see you then. Get some rest, you’ve earned it.”

Nolan continues on his way to his car, as I head into the building. I greeted Emil and Milly as I entered the conference room we use as an office. “Evan will be here in a bit; he was called away to access a new ability,” Emil explains.

“I’m not sure if we are expecting any tours today, or how large they will be, but we’ll make do as we always do,” I answer. “I still think we should require survivors to call in and make a reservation for a tour. That way, we can control the size of the groups as well as how many tours a day we’ll do.”

“I’ll keep pitching the idea at the board meetings, maybe one day they’ll vote to pass the concept. Currently, the main focus is on building a second building for housing.”

“We do need more room for housing, or we’ll have to put a pause on our acceptance of survivors, and that could be dangerous for those coming to us looking for security.”

“We are close to obtaining the building permits needed to start construction.”

“That’s good.”

“We should start making bets on how many groups, group sizes, and times to keep things interesting for us,” Milly suggests.

“I don’t know about that, Milly. What if we each only get one right, which makes it break even?” Emil answers.

“We could do weekly predictions,” I add with a shrug of my shoulders.

“I think Milly has a gambling problem,” Emil comments.

“Hey,” Milly pouts with her arms crossed.

“You suggest making bets on everything. The next ability development, the most colorful clothing per group, and now this. It’s making me concerned.” Emil points out.

“I’m bored. I can not stand how boring everything is around here every day.” Milly complains.

“Lexi and I host a game night once a week to keep the boredom at bay. Something for the next committee meeting, after the housing unit has begun being constructed, could be some facility and community-wide events. Game, shows, movie viewings, we could through some themed parties and other ideas.” I suggest. “It may be healthier than betting since we don’t necessarily know if someone has a history of addiction. We’ve been cured from most illnesses, I’m not sure how it affects addicts.”

“I like that idea,” Milly said with a smile.

“We can’t decide on a name for the facility or the community, never mind events for our residents,” Emil notes.

“I still think we should bring the names to the residents for a vote,” Milly states.

“It sounds like the board is having trouble finding peaceful conclusions to things,” I reply.

“New visitors have arrived.” A voice sounds over the intercom.

“Sounds like this conversation has to be tabled for a bit. Who has this tour?” Emil asks excitedly.

“I will,” Milly states, standing up and exiting the room.

I go to the whiteboard at the front of the lecture hall where we run orientation. I write out the routine into steps to visually tell everyone what they should expect of the day. We do three separate interviews per person, usually Evan, Emil, and Milly each run one interview at a time, while I observe from an observation room. Hopefully, Evan arrives in time to do his interviews, otherwise, we’ll only be doing two while I observe. The reason they have me observe is so I can walk between the three interview rooms and signal the interviewer when I hear something untrue.

Milly walks a group into the lecture hall and instructs them all to take a seat. She walks to the front of the room and whispers to me, “We have 20 in this group. I hope Evan gets here soon. I asked the front desk to pause tours until we call them to avoid having to stop mid-tour to welcome another group.”

I nod in understanding as I watch everyone find a seat, filling the audience seats more than we’ve seen since the facility went public among the survivors. When the last person enters the room, my heart jumps to my throat… It’s Doug. I’m not sure why I had that reaction to seeing him, but now I feel on edge. I never would have thought Doug would have gotten the vaccine, not after all the cases he was handling regarding the families of the deceased recipients.

I take a quick sip of water from my water bottle, then a deep breath. “Hello, and welcome to the survivor facility. My name is Mandy Greene, and I received the vaccine roughly a year ago, and with my bunkmate, I came here. Here we are safe from the protesters and anti-vaccine crowd that are becoming increasingly violent towards us recipients. I need to warn you that we do not allow just anyone in as residents. You will go through a three-part interview and be asked questions about your life before receiving the vaccine, as well as your experience after receiving the vaccine, followed by how you heard about our facility and why you decided to come here. We offer support groups to all our residents and encourage everyone to follow a routine. I know we all signed NDA’s with Greenway Industries, but in the support groups, the only people you will be talking to are fellow recipients who have seen similar things in their blocks at Greenway, and if you recall, the NDA’s were exclusive to any non-recipient or Greenway Industries employee.” I go through my spiel. “Because this is such a large group, we’ll have a few people come in to watch you while the interviews are being conducted. We do three interviews at a time, then alternate those three with the remaining two interviews. If you succeed past your interviews, we’ll bring you to another room to wait for your tour of the facility, followed by being assigned a two-bedroom apartment. If you fail your interviews, you will be escorted out of the building and off the property.”

“How could we fail our interview?” A lady asked.

“You lie,” I answer simply. “If you choose to lie about basic facts and information, you cannot be trusted within our facility. The safety of our residents is our top priority.”

The side door opens as Evan enters with a whispered apology. When the backdoors open, I see two of our security guards enter. Randal stands about six feet with brown hair and eyes, has super strength, while Yuri has platinum blonde hair and blue eyes, and can control air, meaning he can push things around with just gusts of air. As soon as our security guards take their places at the doors to watch the group, Emil, Milly, and Evan greet the first round of recipients. I exit through a side door and enter my observation room while the interviews begin.