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Rain from Heaven

By AJ AVila

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An ounce of death splashed into the mountain stream.

Animated by a bath of H20, the microscopic organisms multiplied. Swirled about in currents of melted snow, they trickled downhill, proliferating, their watery path rendered silver by the light of both shining moons. Above, myriads of stars, clustered near the galaxy's center, dotted the night sky.The sun rose, and its life-giving rays flooded the stream. Aroused by heat, the creatures procreated in a mad frenzy. Dozens mushroomed into thousands. Thousands sprouted into millions.

Water rippling with sunlight slid over pebbles, gushed over cataracts, snaked down the mountainside. Tributaries surged into the stream, widened it into a river.

Millions of the creatures spawned into billions, billions into trillions. They flitted about in the currents, scattered throughout the water's depths.
And rushed toward the city.
***
Breeping from the phone jolted him awake. He fumbled for the receiver and answered before the second ring.

"Well?"

"It's done," a hoarse voice reported. "I put it where you told me to."

"That was twelve hours ago." Stray brown hairs tickled his forehead. He frowned at their noncompliance, licked his finger, and smoothed them into place.

Subdued light from the computer monitor illuminated the room. He stumbled across the floor and hit a key. The screen saver changed to the last file he had been working on, a list of his charitable donations. Thousands were earmarked for hospitals, scholarships, technological research.

He balanced the phone between his jaw and shoulder. His fingers, racing over the keyboard, called up a different program.

"What's the situation now?" he said. "You have a count?"

"Uh . . . ." Papers rustled over the line. "Dr. Addler says lab results show 6.37 per liter."

He checked the screen. "Slightly less than the computer projection. Still, it will do."

"New orders?"

"Fly back immediately."

"Right, Boss."

He disconnected and gazed at the number in the PDT column: 260,826,000. His hands folded in his lap. The actual death toll, he mused, should come within ten percent of the computer prediction.

A corner of his mouth curled up. He uncorked a dusty bottle of blood-red pectum wine, poured a goblet, and saluted the computer with a raised glass. Light from the monitor streamed through the cup. Scarlet stained his hands, and he marveled that light could shine through anything so opaque.
"To beginnings," he muttered before taking a sweet sip.

1


A jet, engines whining, swept over the roof of the Anneton Transport Hub. Dellan clamped his hands over his ears to suppress the deafening roar. The building quivered, vibrations hummed in the floor.

When the rumble subsided, he and his grandmother stepped to the front of the line. "Brithantra North," he told the blonde ticket agent. While she tapped at her keyboard, he dug in a pants pocket for his paycard and International Travel Permit.

Grandma poked his shoulder.

He turned around. "What?"

"Be sure to eat those pastries I baked you."

"Grandma, they serve food on airships."

"Eat them anyway. A sixteen-year-old boy shouldn't be so skinny."

"Okay, okay."

"Promise?" she said.

Dellan raised his eyebrows and grinned in false innocence. "Don't you trust me?"

She snorted. "You promised you'd get that brown shag you call hair cut."

"I will. Eventually."

"Passage to Brithantra North is 556 cendrons," the ticket agent reported. "Method of payment?"

"Paycard."

She hit Enter and held out her hand. "Paycard plea--"

The agent froze, gaping at the computer screen.

Dellan said, "If the flight's full, I can take a later . . . ." His breath strangled at the sight of the agent's eyes widening in alarm.

"What's wrong?" he said.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but the borders have been closed."

"What?" Dellan leaned over the counter to view her screen. His vision zoomed in on a word in flashing crimson, text around it blurring. Whining droned in his ears. One scarlet word burned into his mind, sucked the breath of life from his lungs.

QUARANTINED.

Grandma said, "What's wrong? What is it? Dear God, it's not . . . ?"

Dellan turned. Her eyes, usually a soft indigo, reflected his own sharp panic. He opened his mouth to tell her but the words choked in his throat.
A loudspeaker announcement spared him. It boomed across the Transport Hub, and crowds of travelers hushed into dead silence. All flights to Brithantra, it said, were canceled. No details were given.

No details needed to be given.

Dellan grabbed his luggage. "Grandma, come on!"

He ached to bolt for the broadcaster in the lounge but slowed his pace to match hers. Soon they were enmeshed in foot traffic streaming in the same direction.

"Let it be in the south," he prayed. "God, please. As far away as possible."
Cheeks flushed with guilt at the realization that being on vacation was probably going to save his life. Shame burned deeper when he recalled begging his mother for a week of snow at a friend's cabin instead. He was sixteen, he'd pleaded, too old to waste his holiday visiting Grandma. All the way to the Transport Hub, he'd sulked, arms folded in defiance. He'd stiffened, refused even to look at her, when she'd hugged him goodbye.
Now he might never see her again.

He and Grandma were last to arrive in the lounge. The crowd obstructed Dellan's view of the broadcaster. He dropped his luggage and stepped onto a bench.

On the screen, a female news reporter stood outside an emergency room. One glance at a newscaster from his hometown confirmed Dellan's worst fear: his parents were going to die, and they were going to die horribly.

"We advise residents to remain in their homes," the reporter said. "Nothing can be done for you at the hospital. If you have symptoms of the plague, stay indoors. Do not bother boiling your tap water. High temperatures will not kill the virus."

Behind her a car screeched to a halt. A young couple bolted from it, the woman clutching a screaming infant.

The camera caught a glimpse of the baby's face, and the crowd in the lounge gasped. Dozens of black pox marks blemished its skin. Cheekbones were bared where the disease had eaten through. The couple raced for the emergency entrance, their car doors left wide open, the engine running.

"Thank God it's on the other side of the world," a brown-haired man standing near Dellan said.

A woman pointed at the screen. "Don't you understand what this means? This is Brithantra. This time it's not an underdeveloped nation with poor hygiene. How did it get there?"

"It's probably just a fluke," the man commented. "Besides, they can contain it. They contained it when it broke out in Begron, didn't they? And then it was over a year before it broke out in Ayers, and it's been months since that happened. Just because it's there doesn't mean it's coming here."

Dellan glanced at Grandma. Tears rimmed her eyes.

"Stay here." He jumped down, grabbed his paycard, and darted to a bank of communication booths.

Lines to Brithantra were jammed. Over and over, Dellan punched in the code of his home number. At last breeps trilled as the call went through.

The other end was picked up. "Hello?"

"Mom, you all right?"

"We're fine. No pox marks. You haven't left yet, have you?"

Dellan sank onto the booth's seat. "No, Grandma and I are at the transport. They won't let me into the country."

"Thank God. How is Grandma taking this?"

"Not well."

"Let me speak to her."

"Mom, she's clear across the terminal."

"Okay, give her a message. Tell her Dad is on the computer web, transferring our funds into her bank account. We want no question where our money's supposed to go, if anything happens to us."

His fingers squeezed the receiver. "Nothing's going to happen to you. You have bottled water, don't you?"

"A two-week supply. Plus all you won't be drinking, since you're not here."

"Then you'll be okay," Dellan said. "You didn't drink any tap water today, did you? No ice cubes?"

His mother paused a bit too long. "We're going to be fine."

Bleeps signaled the call had five seconds left.

Sticky pain washed down Dellan's throat. He struggled to muffle his blubbering, but the anguish tumbled out. "Mom, I'm sorry--"

Click! The phone company cut him off.

Dellan dropped the receiver into its cradle and gazed at it hanging there, blurred by his tears. He squeezed his eyes shut and wished his mother could rock him in her arms, shushing his sobs, the way she had long ago, back in a world where nobody had heard of the Pedemcia Virus.

He sucked in a breath, wiped his tears, and shuffled back to his grandmother. Wobbling on her toes, she strained to see the broadcast screen. Another newscaster, at Brithantra's northern border, reported that even children fleeing the country were being shot on sight.

"See? What did I tell you?" the brown-haired man said, pointing at the screen. "They're containing it. I mean, I know it's horrible, but you have to admit it's necessary. Otherwise, it could spread."

Dellan glimpsed Grandma's tear-stained face. He squeezed her hand. "I talked to Mom. She and Dad are all right."

"Good. That's good." She pointed at the screen. "They're shooting children, Dellan. Children."

He choked, "I know. But they have to. God knows how many millions will die if they don't."

Fresh tears accompanied a sad nod. "Let's go home."

Sharp new pain slid down his throat. Always before, she'd said, "Let's go back to the house."

But it wasn't just a house anymore.

It was home.
***
Twilight dissolved. Darkness washed Dellan's room.He sat on the bed and squeezed fistfuls of quilt in his hands. Insects chirped outside an open window, stars sparkled. He wondered how everything could seem so normal when the world was in the middle of a catastrophe.

Dellan grabbed the phone, hit redial, and cringed when he heard the same recording he'd gotten all day: "Satellite traffic is too heavy to connect more communica--"

He slammed down the receiver. They'd promised they'd call. They'd called yesterday. Yesterday his mother had sworn they were still all right. But her tone, high-pitched and halting, painted a different story.

All day newscasts from Brithantra had televised pictures of victims with black purulent sores ravaging their skin. The virus killed millions of cells a minute; bodies began decomposing long before death claimed them.
Mom and Dad. They were probably like that, he thought, flesh rotting, fingers and toes crumbling.

"Please, God," Dellan whimpered. "You can give me a miracle if you want. Spare them, and I'll donate money to the poor. I'll do volunteer work. I'll do anything you want. I'll never sin again, I promise. Just let them live."
For hours the world rotated in space. Dellan pleaded, cajoled, made promises.

The stubborn phone remained silent.

His eyes slipped closed. Dellan bowed his head in defeat and drifted into sleep.

Deep in his consciousness he realized his heart was pounding like that of a runner dashing for the finish line. Hands trembled, breath shuddered.

He was about to open his eyes when time seemed to stand still. Silence replaced the booming cannon of his heartbeat.

Fire, streams of burning ecstasy, coursed through him. A Voice resonated in his head: It's your parents' time to come to me. Will you give me your parents?

"Oh yes," he whispered. "Take them home to heaven. They belong to you."

A great evil has come upon the world. I want you to destroy it. You will be given three powerful gifts to help you. Use them wisely, following the path of Love.

"I accept them. I promise to use them well."

Do you consent to serve me in this mission?

Flames scoured through him, ecstasies so powerful he thought he would explode with love. "My Lord, I will do whatever you wish."

It shut off as though a switch had been thrown.

Dellan opened eyes streaming with tears. Shuddering hands clasped together to quell their trembling.

He slumped onto his side. Tears soaked the pillow. A moon rose, stars blazed, and the world spun in space.

Dellan stared at flowered wallpaper dulled into sepia.

"I didn't imagine it. I know I didn't imagine it."

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