“Yes,” I said, and I meant it.
“What does Remy want with Cold Shore?”he asked.
“She…” I took a deep breath.I’d kept her secret for so long, and it felt strange to be spilling it now, even to the people who loved her the most in the world.“She wants to find a cure.”
Boden frowned.“What do you mean?What are you talking about?”
“Too many people have died, and she knows that the answer might be in her veins.So…” I shrugged helplessly, because we both knew what that meant for Remy.“She wanted to try.”
“No.”Boden leaned back in his chair and shook his head adamantly.“There’s no way.She’d never let anyone experiment on her ever again.”
“This is the Cold ShoreGlobalContingency, so it’s not affiliated with any one government, and she’s going in with her eyes wide open,” I said, relaying what she’d told me all those months ago when she first came to me hoping to escape.
Boden was still incredulous, but I couldn’t tell if it was because he thought I was still lying, or that he couldn’t believe that Remy would do this.
“The last time they tried to use her to find a cure, they cut her up and took every part of her that they could,” Boden insisted.“They almost killed her.You know that, right?”
“I do,” I admitted thickly.“But… if she can save the world… how can I tell her not to?”
“She can’t.No one can,” Boden said.“All you did was hand a loaded gun to a suicidal person.”
“No, that’s not fair.”I shook my head.“I gave a map to someone who was hellbent on escaping.”
“If you gave her a map, can you give us the same one?”Stella asked.
I went over to an apothecary chest on the far wall of the kitchen.In the top left drawer, I found the same letter I had shown Remy before she left.It explained what I knew about Cold Shore, and on the back of it, I’d written out a map that Remy had copied for herself.
“I first heard about Cold Shore from Nova’s sister, Sage,” I explained as I set the letter on the table between Stella and Boden.“Our daughter was named after her.The elder Sage was a doctor in Vancouver when Cold Shore tried recruiting her.She declined them, but she explains why in this letter.This copy she didn’t send, because the ink is smudged.”
Stella reached into her pack and hurriedly pulled out a journal, so she could begin copying the map.
“You should’ve given this to me when I came here months ago.”Boden glared up at me.
“I know.I’m sorry.But I’m giving it to you now.That’s the best I can do.”
15
Sage
To: Michael Haugen, Director-General
Cold Shore Global Contingency
c/o Glacier Valley Outpost
Western Reach, Former British Columbia
Thank you so much for reaching out and even considering me for involvement in the Cold Shore project.
I clearly recall when your proposal for a global contingency was announced, so presciently it seems since it was less than a decade before the lyssavirus mutation changed the world forever.While others had decried it as a “doomsday fantasy,” I have always seen Cold Shore as a sign of optimism.The idea that humanity can come together and rebuild, no matter what we endure is nothing if not hopeful.
I believe your intentions are noble.If you succeed in recruiting the best of us who’ve survived, I’m confident you’ll make real progress toward rebuilding civilization, and maybe even finding a cure.
But I fear that is where our positions differ.Finding a cure is undoubtedly important, but I am less interested in rebuilding the world as it was and more interested in understanding what the world has become.The virus has changed people and altered humanity on a scale that we have never encountered, and I fear that if we attempt to destroy it without truly understanding it, that we will be doomed to repeat it again.
In my experience at the Cascadia General Hospital, working in the emergency room for three months after the first “zombie” was reported, I saw how authority responds to a threat like this.The priorities are containment and eradication, even if those infected still looked and cried like humans.
It is my understanding that for a variety of reasons, most of them practical, logical, and likely even correct, the Cold Shore Global Contingency follows these same protocols.The infected and the virus itself only have value if contained, and they must be eradicated if they are unrestrained.
