Immunity Index, Sue Burke [accelerated reader books txt] 📗

If the mutiny passwords she’d been given would do what they were supposed to, she could make AutoKar available for everyone, citizens or not, and any class of citizens—and fuck the Prez, whose official news said nothing special was happening, although he didn’t say so himself with his bright smiling face, so maybe it was a lie and he wanted to give himself plausible deniability. But thinking about him was a waste of time.

She opened the card and followed instructions, working her way one by one up through a series of administrative privilege levels, and finally she reached the last one. She tapped in a long series of numbers, letters, and symbols. Then she waited while the system rebooted. These instructions had to be an inside job. AutoKar had more mutineers and at least one in a high place. Good.

“System settings,” she said. They came up … and it worked! She had full, god-level access to every setting in the franchise. With a grin that felt splendidly evil, she began to change them.

Mutiny. Yeah. And then what happens? A fight was coming, and she had fired her first shot.

Meanwhile, up in the work bay was Old Man Tito, too poor to retire, which he deserved. She should say hello and see if he needed help, and then she’d make sure that more staff was coming in soon. The smell of disinfectant filled the air, rotting pines dissolved in kerosene.

Her father could have made a funny video about that, about stinky-clean cars.

She started to cry. No. Deep breath, no crying, not right now. Today was going to be freedom or disaster, and in any case, a lot more complicated than the battle anyone had expected.

Thirty years ago, my every move had radiated exhilaration: a young, strong woman wearing dangling, glittering earrings, murderously high heels, ample makeup, and ample attitude. I had a thriving business, and I had a dream, although it had turned into dust, a husband had divorced, and the woman had long dozed. But now, that Peng had reawoken. World, take heart. These old-man clothes hid a dragon on a mission.

Colonel Wilkinson wore disaster and sleep deprivation on his face. He had come to my little jail cell, and he would acquiesce to my demands—if he knew what was good for him. He had to know I understood at least some of the situation. I saw my own face reflected in a screen: a steadfast, confident, fire-breathing grandfather.

“How fast can we act?” he said, a reasonable question.

“Not fast enough, but we can do a great deal of good.” (A lot more than that, I knew.) “Is it possible to have person-to-person, direct communication with the other nodes?” My tone glowed red-hot.

He hesitated a moment. “They’re here, most of them.” He gestured toward a locked door. “We … we had security concerns. You can understand, Dr. Peng.”

“We also need to know what’s going on. Access to news, uncensored. The ability to communicate and come and go as we please.” He winced, and I felt guilty pleasure. “Not many secrets are left now. We can’t do much more harm with anything we could say. We deserve to be here freely, not held as prisoners. And we need final decisions made on medical criteria, not lunatic politicians who think flags can prevent an epidemic.” (Oh, the thrill of giving orders to the powerful!)

To my surprise, he said, “Agreed.” Then he gestured to a purple ribbon on his lapel, clearly not part of his uniform, so that tiny scrap of fabric had to mean something exceptional. “We have a new chain of command. There’s a mutiny under way.”

He saw my face collapse into that of a befuddled old man.

“Some of us,” he said, “have decided we cannot obey illegal orders. To be honest, we obeyed them for far too long, and I owe you an apology. But now a line was crossed. A deadly version of the deltacoronavirus, the variation you recently examined, was deliberately released, and that accounts for the sudden illnesses. We don’t know precisely who did it, but we’re sure it was with the consent of the man who used to be my commander in chief.”

His voice held enough steel to arm a battalion.

It also relit the fire in my breath. “That version has a lot to tell us.” He would find out just how much, if I could genuinely trust him, although a trustworthy mutiny seemed like too much to hope for.

“We need to act fast,” he said, “and I’m glad to see your energy and willingness to take an active role. You’re free to go, but you might want to stay within this facility for your own safety. There will be confrontations.”

“I’m more worried about others than myself. I’ll stay here.”

“Thank you.” He rose. “Let’s begin.”

I turned back to a screen littered with letters and molecules that spelled out life and death and their permutations and possibilities, some of those sequences badly misspelled. He left to face danger and disaster head-on. I tried to parse hope from molecular words and grammar, breathless.

Fifteen minutes later, the door that the colonel had pointed to opened. Grrl walked in, indeed female, but unlike my younger self, not performative in her appearance: instead she was simply dressed and with a practical haircut. Still, her intellect and character glowed like a beautiful halo. I’d already seen that face with its stately cheekbones, although her eyes now glinted with misgiving.

“Peng. I’m Vita.” Beyond the door she’d walked through, voices spoke a bit more calmly than earlier when I’d heard them shouting. The panic had sunk to professional levels.

“Vitória Peixoto?”

She bestowed a thin smile of acknowledgment.

“I’ve read your papers. I am honored.” In certain fields her knowledge outshone mine like the sun to a candle, so I had long wished to meet her, doubting that I ever would.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry to say things aren’t going well at all.”

I followed her up a stairway into a larger