The Extinction Files: The Complete Series, page 103
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Every day, fewer guards show up for work.
That worries me.
I know why: the staff and guards are moving south, to the habitable zones. I don’t know if the federal government is moving them, or if they’re going on their own initiative.
A war is coming—a war for the last habitable zones on Earth. People with military and police backgrounds will be in high demand. So will correctional officers. The camps will likely resemble prisons. The government will need men and women trained in keeping order in large, confined populations. The population’s survival depends on it.
And therein lies my problem. Edgefield, South Carolina, is about halfway between Atlanta and Charleston. It’s snowing here (in August), but the glaciers haven’t reached us. The ice will be here soon, and they’ll evacuate the area. The evacuations won’t include prisoners. The truth is, the government will be hard pressed to save all the children in this country, much less the adults, and they certainly won’t be dragging prisoners with them (and definitely not across the Atlantic to the habitable zones in northern Africa). Their priority will be making sure prisoners don’t escape to follow them south and make even more trouble for an already strained government. They’ll lock us up tight in here. Or worse.
Accordingly, I’ve revived my escape plans. It seems all of my fellow inmates have too. The feeling here is like sitting down for a July Fourth fireworks show. We’re all waiting for the first explosion to go up. It’ll likely be fast and furious after that, and I doubt any of us will survive.
I need to hurry.
The door to the laundry room swings open, and a correctional officer strides in.
“Morning, Doc.”
I don’t look up from the sheets. “Morning.”
Pedro Alvarez is one of the best correctional officers in this place, in my opinion. He’s young, honest, and doesn’t play games.
In one sense, prison has been good for me. It has been a uniquely valuable place to study human nature—which, again, was my blind spot, and the real reason I wound up in here.
I have come to believe that most correctional officers go into this line of work for one reason: power. They want to have power over others. I believe the common cause is that someone, at some point, had power over them. Therein lies a seminal truth about human nature: we desire in adulthood what we were deprived in childhood.
Pedro is an anomaly in the pattern. That drew me to him. I pursued a friendship and have extracted data points that revealed a different motivation. I know the following about him. His family—parents, brothers, and sisters—are still in Mexico. He has a wife, also aged approximately twenty-seven, and two children, both sons, five and three. And finally, I know that his wife is the sole reason he’s working here.
Pedro grew up in Michoacán, a mountainous, lawless state in Mexico where the drug cartels are judge and jury and murders are more common than traffic accidents. Pedro moved here when his wife was pregnant, because he didn’t want his children to grow up the way he had.
He began working for a landscaping crew during the day, and at night and on the weekends he studied criminal justice at Spartanburg Community College. On graduation day, he told his wife that he was joining the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Department—because he didn’t want to see this place become what Michoacán had. There is law and order here, and he wanted to keep it that way, for his children’s sake.
Another truth: parents desire for their children the things they never had.
After Pedro’s announcement, his wife got on the internet, looked up the fatality rates for police officers, and issued an ultimatum: find another profession or find another wife.
They compromised. Pedro became a corrections officer, which carried fatality stats and working hours that were acceptable to Maria Alvarez. Plus better benefits, overtime pay, pay plus twenty-five percent on Sunday, and access to the government’s hazardous duty law enforcement provision that would allow him to retire with full benefits after twenty-five years of service—right before his forty-ninth birthday. It was a good choice. At least, before the Long Winter started.
I had expected Pedro to be one of the first officers to leave this place. I figured he would head back to Mexico, where his family is, and where the habitable zones are being set up. That’s where the Canadian and American hordes will be going soon.
But instead, he’s one of the last ones here. The scientist in me wants to know why. The survivor in me needs to know why.
“You draw the short straw, Pedro?”
He cocks an eyebrow at me.
Pedro is about the closest thing I have to a friend in here, and I can’t help but say these next words.
“You shouldn’t be here. You, and Maria, and the kids should be heading south right now.”
He studies his boots. “I know, Doc.”
“So why are you still here?”
“Not enough seniority. Or maybe not enough friends. Or maybe both.”
He’s right: it is both. And probably because his supervisors know that he will actually fight when the riots start. In the world we live in, the best people carry the weight for others—and they get crushed first.
Pedro shrugs. “It’s above my pay grade.”
An inmate appears in the doorway and scans the room, his eyes wide, unblinking. Drugged. There’s something in his hand. His name is Marcel, and he’s generally bad news.
Pedro turns.
Marcel leaps for him, wraps a meaty arm around the guard’s midsection, traps his arms, and raises a homemade knife to Pedro’s neck.
Time seems to stand still. I’m vaguely aware of the hum of the washers and dryers, of the news blaring on. A new sensation begins, a rumbling in the distance, like thunder moving closer. Footsteps. A mob flowing through the prison’s corridors. Shouting overpowers the footsteps, but I can’t make out the words.
Pedro is struggling against Marcel’s hold.
Another inmate appears in the doorway. He’s barrel-chested, keyed up. I don’t know his name. He shouts to Marcel. “You got ’im, Cel?”
“I got him.”
The other inmate darts away, and Marcel looks at me. “They gonna let us freeze to death in here, Doc. You know it.”
He waits.
I say nothing.
Pedro grits his teeth as he tries to pull his right hand free.
“You with us, Doc?”
Pedro’s hand breaks from Marcel’s hold and flies to his side, into his pocket. I’ve never seen him use a weapon. I’m not sure he has one.
Marcel doesn’t wait to find out. He moves the knife closer to Pedro’s neck.
And I make my choice.
* * *
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Author’s Note
Thank you for reading.
Pandemic is the longest book I’ve ever written, and it was a challenge far greater than I ever expected. The complexity and amount of research for The Extinction Files series actually exceed the work I did for the Atlantis novels. And it occurred during the busiest time in my personal life. I began working on Pandemic about two and half years ago. Somewhere in between researching, drafting, and editing the novel, Anna and I moved from Florida back to North Carolina, welcomed our first child, a daughter, and finalized plans on a new home. I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night. But I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Getting up at two a.m. to change a poopy diaper, prep a bottle, edit a chapter, unpack a box, or review a new floor plan was a fact of life while I wrote Pandemic. Each was a labor of love, and that kept me sane (coffee kept me awake).
I’ve heard from so many of you that you’d love for me to publish more frequently. I’ve tried to balance that request with delivering the highest quality product I can. I have mostly erred on the side of quality. I hope the wait was worth it.
If you’d like to know how much of the novel is fact vs fiction, please visit my web site: agriddle.com/pandemic.
So many of you were kind enough to write a review of my past novels, and I will be forever grateful. Those reviews helped shine a light on my work, and I’ve tried very hard to deserve the attention. I’ve also learned a great deal from those reviews, and the many words of encouragement were certainly a source of inspiration while writing this novel.
If you have time to leave a review, I would truly appreciate it. Since Pandemic is the first book in a new series, reviews really help other readers find the book.
Thanks again for reading and take care,
- Gerry
A.G. Riddle
PS: Feel free to email me (ag@agriddle.com) with any feedback or questions. Sometimes it takes me a few days, but I answer every single email.
Acknowledgments
I had a lot of help with this one, so I’ve got lots of debts to pay.
Anna: thanks first and foremost for being a wonderful mother to our daughter. And for helping me weather everything life throws our way.
David Gatewood: thanks for the incredible job editing. Your suggestions made the novel so much better and your eye for detail saved me from a lynching on the internet (or at least reduced the number of lashes). Visit www.lonetrout.com to learn more about David’s work.
Several early readers and subject matter experts made suggestions and provided guidance that significantly improved Pandemic. They are: Sylvie Delézay, Carole Duebbert, Kathleen Harvey, Fran Mason, and Lisa Weinberg.
I am grateful to Hannah Siebern, a friend and fantastic German author, who helped advised me on the German language passages.
I am indebted to my fantastic group of beta readers, who caught things I never would have seen. They are: Lee Ames, Judy Angsten, Jeff Baker, Jen Bengtson, Kari Biermann, Paul Bowen, Jacob Bulicek, Robin Collins, Sue Davis, Michelle Duff, Skip Folden, Kay Forbes, Marnie Gelbart, Lisa Gulli Popkins, Mike Gullion, Aimee Hess, Justin Irick, Ajit Iyer, Kris Kelly, Karin Kostyzak, Matt Lacey, Cameron Lewis, Kelly Mahoney, Nick Mathews, Kristen Miller, Kim Myers, Amber O’Connor, Cindy Prendergast, Katie Regan, Dave Renison, Teodora Retegan, Lionel Riem, Chris Rowson, Andy Royl, John Schmiedt, Andrea Sinclair, Christine Smith, Duane Spellecacy, Phillip Stevens, Paula Thomas, Gareth Thurston, Tom Vogel , Ron Watts, Sylvia Webb, and Lew Wuest.
I am continually inspired by the intellect and curiousity of these readers: Michael Alaniz, Shannon Barker, Roe Benjamin, Matthew Blaquiere, Emily Bristol, Tom Buckner, James Burge, Jim Burns, Sarah Cartwright, Stephania Cheng, Jim Critchfield, Dan Davis, Kevin Davis, Robert Defibaugh, Norma Fritz, Tim Gallagher, Kelley Green, Corey Guidry, Michael “mooP” Haymore, Jonathan Henson, Brandon Holt, Rodney Keith Impey, Alex Jones, Josh Kling, Louis Laeger, Mark Lalumondier, Logan Lykins, Timothy Mak, Stephen Maxwell, Carrie McNair, Steve McNaull, Henry A. Mitchell III, Elias Nasser, Najar Ramsada, Joshua Ramsdell, Gabriele Ratto, Ryan D. Reid, Ignaty Romanov-Chernigovsky, Mandie Russell Clem, Alfred Sadaka III, John Schulz, Nicolò Sgnaolin, Jack Silverstein, Vojtěch Šimonka, Antonio Sonzini, Josh Sutton, Matt Tobin, Joshlyne Villano, Maegan Washburn, Ryan White, and Raymond Yep, Jr.
About the Author
A.G. Riddle spent ten years starting internet companies before retiring to pursue his true passion: writing fiction.
His debut novel, The Atlantis Gene, is the first book in a trilogy (The Origin Mystery) that has sold over three million copies worldwide, has been translated into 20 languages, and is in development to be a major motion picture.
His fourth novel, Departure, follows the survivors of a flight that takes off in 2015 and crash-lands in a changed world. HarperCollins published the novel in hardcover in the fall of 2015, and 20th Century Fox is developing it for a feature film.
Released in 2017, his fifth novel, Pandemic, focuses on a team of researchers investigating an outbreak that could alter the human race. The sequel, Genome, concludes the two-book series.
His most recent novel, Winter World, depicts a group of scientists racing to stop a global ice age.
Riddle grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill. During his sophomore year in college, he started his first company with a childhood friend. He currently lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife, who endures his various idiosyncrasies in return for being the first to read his new novels.
No matter where he is, or what’s going on, he tries his best to set aside time every day to answer emails and messages from readers. You can reach him at: ag@agriddle.com
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Riddle, A.G., The Extinction Files: The Complete Series
