Fiction: Pandemic

[kethni]

Name: Pandemic


Pairing: Matt/Mohinder


Rating: NC-17


Warnings: References to mass death, forced breeding, institutional prostitution.


Word Count: 1663


Authors Note: For aaang


Matt surviving the Shanti Virus in the AU we saw in "Out of Time".







The world ended with the breaking of a single glass vial. Within minutes almost everyone at ground zero for the outbreak was dead. Within an hour it was everyone in the nearest city. Within twelve hours it was everyone in the tri state area. As panicking Americans fled they took the disease with them across the USA, up into Canada, Alaska, and across to Greenland, and down to Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, across to Colombia and all the way down to Argentina. They paddled for Cuba in clumsy rafts and carriers took the disease with them. Planes fell from the sky with everyone aboard corpses before they even crashed. Countries closed their borders. Refugees were gunned down as they swarmed towards checkpoints. Ships were sunk by battleship and submarine. Yet the disease spread through air, touch, and water, mowing down victims by the million. From Alaska the pandemic spread to Russia, Mongolia, China, North and South Korea, Japan, as far down as India, and as far across as Kazakhstan from where it spread to Ukraine and into the whole of Europe and then to Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and all the way to South Africa and across to Madagascar. Australia was the last major land mass to succumb but once it had spread to Indonesia and then Papua New Guinea it was a matter of days before it traversed Australia.


Within a year 93% of the population had been wiped out. The most densely populated areas were the worst affected. In Tokyo the corpses lay five deep in the streets. The tunnels in Manhattan were impassable: blocked with the crashed cars that were the tombs of deceased drivers and their passengers. The Ganges River suffocated under the weight of carcasses.


Food rotted unharvested in fields. Factories lay idle. Hospitals were morgues. Schools were empty and silent. There was no power. No heat. No telephone networks. Civilisation died.


Around 22 million people survived in the USA. A little less than three times the population of New York City survived in total. Survivors have been corralled into evacuation centres and separated according to gender and fertility. The uninfected are put to work farming or, where possible, being trained as doctors, engineers, fishermen, and all the other roles that so desperately need filling. The men give sperm once a week and the women are inseminated once a month, irrespective of how either party feels about the transaction. Society must be re-established but first they must ensure they neither become extinct nor starve.


Those men who have proved immune are kept in a separate camp where they are fed, watered, tested, bred, and guarded.


‘Good morning,’ Matt says, getting up to his feet when his visitor walks into the dormitory. There are a few thousand men in the camp in total, each of them in dormitories that house a hundred or so. The other men are out for exercise at the moment but a visit from the science and medical officer trumps any amount of push ups. ‘I’ve not seen you for a while. I guess you’ve been busy. Not much is happening here. Same old, same old.’


Mohinder raises an eyebrow as he opens his bag and takes out his equipment. ‘You’re very voluble today,’ he remarks. His voiced is tired. Everything about him is tired. Exhaustion is laid all over him like a heavy fog. His eyes are bloodshot and bagged, his shoulders are slumped, and his clothes are rumpled and worn.


‘I’m a people person,’ Matt says. He rolls up the sleeve of his jumpsuit and holds out his arm.


‘You say that every time,’ Mohinder says, prepping Matt’s arm.


‘It’s still true.’


Mohinder takes a sample of Matt’s blood with practiced ease. ‘When did you last donate?’


‘A couple of days ago,’ Matt says, licking his lips.


‘And the last time you used one of the whores?’


Matt reddens and shakes his head. ‘I don’t really… it’s not…’


‘Matt, you have needs like anyone else,’ Mohinder says severely. ‘Everyone has to do their bit. I have to donate the same as you. The whores can’t do that so they do their part in another way.’


Matt winces as the needle slides out of his skin. ‘Have you seen the camp whores? They look like the walking dead.’


‘We’re none of us looking our best,’ Mohinder says mildly. He sits down next to Matt and sighs. ‘When was the last time you were touched?


‘I seem to remember someone sticking me with a needle?’


Mohinder presses his hand to his forehead. ‘You know that I don’t mean that kind of touching,’ he says. ‘Human beings need physical contact. It’s a scientific fact even for the most antisocial of people and you’re a people person, or so rumour has it.’


Matt touches Mohinder’s hand with his fingertips. ‘I don’t know that I can do it. The camp whores… I can’t touch them. I can see in their eyes what they’ve been through and if I touch them… it might slip out. I don’t think I can deal with that.’


Mohinder takes Matt’s hand and squeezes it gently. ‘Let me think about it. Maybe I can find someone more… someone nicer.’


‘I guess you have to run?’


‘It seems like I’m always running,’ Mohinder admits. ‘I never seem to catch my breath.’


‘You work too hard.’


‘I know; it’s only saving mankind after all.’


‘You’re such an asshole,’ Matt laughs.


‘I know. I can’t help it. I think I get it from my father,’ Mohinder says with a sigh. ‘I met my daughter yesterday. I had no idea who she was until I typed her blood.’


‘Is she cute? I bet she’s cute.’


‘She’s three months old, all she does is poop, sleep, and eat,’ Mohinder says dryly. ‘She had huge brown eyes and far more hair than any child that age has any right to have.’


‘Is she… sick? Since when do you monitor new births?’


‘I don’t but…’ Mohinder plays with Matt’s hand. ‘Babies are genotyped at birth and when they show certain sequences then I take a blood sample. This is… sensitive you know?’


‘Oh, secret squirrel stuff?’


Mohinder pulls a face. ‘Something like that.’


‘I promise it goes no further.’


‘The original Shanti virus only affected evolved humans so we knew that the pandemic had to be a different strain.’


‘Sure, a mutation or something,’ Matt agrees.


‘However we have the fact that a disproportionate amount of the immune and those that recovered from the disease are evolved humans. In fact if we expand the definition of “evolved” to include those of us carrying dormant mutated genes but not demonstrating an ability, then the figure becomes almost laughable.’ Mohinder rubs his head with his free hand. ‘Matt, I haven’t found a single person who is immune or survived infection who isn’t evolved, either manifested or carrying evolved genes. Not one person. I’ve consulted as best I can and I don’t believe that this disease mutated, it was engineered. I’m sure of it. Arthur Petrelli was an evolutionary supremacist, we know that, and this disease was stored under his auspices. I don’t believe this was a coincidence, I can’t believe that.’


‘Whoa, hang on, Nathan nearly died,’ Matt points out. ‘If they designed it to wipe out ordinary humans while leaving evolved humans alive then they fouled up.’


Mohinder purses his lips. ‘This is privileged information.’


‘My lips are sealed.’


‘Nathan isn’t exactly… About forty years ago Primatech was attempting to create evolved humans.’


‘Breeding them?’ Matt asks.


‘Using a kind of primitive, and extremely crude, gene therapy to manipulate genetic mutations where they didn’t already exist. We know that it was done to Nathan, Nikki, and a dozen or so others all of whom were children at the time. The therapy was a slash and burn affair, a number of the children died, and where they didn’t die certain original genetic sequences remained. In Nathan’s case there were no medical consequences until he contracted the virus. The virus itself had no other affect other than to activate the discarded sequences.’


Matt entwines his fingers with Mohinder’s. ‘So what’re you saying, there’s no cure?’


‘I’m saying that we’ve been looking for antibodies that you simply don’t have, that nobody has. It might be that gene therapy is the way forward.’


‘You’re going to give everyone an ability?’ Matt squeaks.


‘No,’ Mohinder laughs. ‘There must be a particular sequence of genres if only I can work it out. That could take the rest of my life.’


Matt puts his arm around Mohinder’s shoulder’s and leans in to kiss his cheek. ‘You need to get more sleep. You’re not looking after yourself. You won’t help anyone running yourself into the ground.’


‘Sometimes I might work too hard.’


‘Sometimes? All the time. Don’t do anything silly.’


Mohinder pulls himself up. ‘Silly! I’m not silly!’


Matt just looks at him.


‘I’m not!’


‘Seriously, Mohinder. Don’t go testing some gene therapy thing on yourself. If something happens to you then we’re screwed. How many geneticists does America have left?’ He squeezes Mohinder’s hand. ‘Besides I’d miss you.’


‘I hate this,’ Mohinder says. ‘What kind of society are we trying to build when relationships are banned and families no longer exist?’


‘It’s… it’s extraordinary measures. You know it’s not going to be forever,’ Matt says quietly.


‘I truly hope that you’re right. But a generation of children is being brought into a world where sex means a dead-eyed prostitute and where children are an obligation. That scares the crap out of me, Matt.’


Matt kisses him softly, and his fingers tangle in Mohinder’s hair.


‘We’ll get in trouble,’ Mohinder murmurs.


‘Only if we get caught,’ Matt smiles against the other man’s mouth. ‘I’ll make sure we aren’t.’






The End