The Plains

It was the tenth year of the plague, and there was still no cure.

Miles Danner and Sera Acosta huddled close to their meager campfire, watching the small pot of beans bubble, nestled in the glowing coals.  A chill had settled on the open Plains as darkness fell, and even with the small fire, they sat under threadbare blankets, arms wrapped across their torsos.  Whenever they looked up from the low flames they could discern the glowing spots of other small fires, with other clumped people around them.  Near the horizon, the cold blue glow and spots of white light shone from Fort Anthem, one of the last compounds on the Barter Route with electricity and running water.  If Miles’ health held out, they would be there by late afternoon.

Sera leaned over the small pot and stirred it with the stained wooden spoon.  The beans belched a cloud of earthy, savory steam and hissed, then went back to slowly bubbling.  Sera leaned back, gazing longingly towards Fort Anthem.  She looked at Miles, hunched over the low flames.

“Get some sleep,” she said.

Miles stared into the fire and shivered.  “Too cold,” he rasped.  Sera thought he looked better than he had yesterday, which was better than the day before.  He was slowly recovering.  He never looked great; when she had first seen him without face paint, she’d seen a man the world had run roughshod over. What he needed was a long, quiet respite from traveling and performing.  After tomorrow night, she intended to see that he got it.

Miles lifted his gaze to the spots of yellow glowing around them.  Individual pitched tents and multi-person camps were scattered across the Plains, practically to the horizon.  People making the pilgrimage to Fort Anthem.  Desperate and hopeful.  Sera followed his gaze, sighing heavily.

“They’re coming from all over,” she noted.  “Not just the Barter Route.  The South Stream has lights in the distance.  I wonder if they fixed the bridges, or just splashed across the rivers?”

“They’ll crawl through barbed wire and brambles, if they think there’s a cure,”  Miles said, dropping his eyes to the glowing coals and cinders.  “End of autumn.  Soon Pete will be showing up.”

Sera shifted, as if invoking the name might call it down on them. It was a reflex.

The best science left had tried for a decade to defeat the virus that had infected practically every living person on Earth.  Dubbed “Petersburg”—“Pete” for short, it killed roughly a third of the world’s population in just under three years. Everyone who survived still carried the virus in them.  It lay dormant through the warm months. mostly, flaring up at the end of fall.

Amid the collapse, a small percentage of people—no one knew why—proved immune to the virus and every mutation it produced. Couldn’t catch it, couldn’t carry it, couldn’t cure it.

Sera and Miles were immune. 

At first, the immune were met with suspicion, resentment, and fear. That changed once it became clear they could not carry or transmit the disease. In the second year of the pandemic, governments and medical coalitions scrambled to identify and protect these vital workers—the ones keeping clinics, farms, supply lines, and refugee camps alive.

Paper credentials were forged. Electronic passes failed. Entire zones believed themselves secure, only to crash amid winter outbreaks. So a universal marker was created: a subdermal patch of engineered bioluminescent mycelium that bonded only with immune physiology. The glowing fractal tattoo—visible under the skin and impossible to counterfeit—became a living passport of immunity.

As society fractured, the system endured. Wherever camps formed, the ‘Mune Mark’ remained the standard of trust. Those who bore it could move freely between segregated communities, becoming the backbone of what little civilization survived—sustaining government, carrying goods and messages along the Barter Route, tending the sick and working in the camps.

Some, like Sera Acosta, became medical aides.

And a very few, like Miles Danner, provided entertainment to the despondent.

In the distance dogs barked, and the rumble of several motorcycles rattled over the flat land.  They could just pick out the tiny pricks of headlamps as the bikers made their way from camp to camp, a faint fog of dust rising behind them, orange in the firelights.  Sera and Miles pensively watched the trail of headlamps bouncing over the rough ground.

“I’d have thought they’d given up by now,” Sera said, her voice tinged with frustration.

“Ten thousand people gathered in one stadium arena,” mused Miles.  “Where better to look for the ‘Clown Who Heals’?”

Sera scowled. She hated that nickname as much as she did “Pete”.  “It’s ridiculous how fast that rumor has spread – like a prairie fire.”

Miles motioned over his shoulder, towards the camp about half a mile away.  In the still air they could faintly hear singing and hymns.  “People don’t spread facts,” he said.  “They spread whatever gives them hope.”

“You should get some sleep,” Sera said again.

“We both should.”

“You’ll need your strength tomorrow,” she advised, looking at him critically but kindly.  “You’re looking better now… how are you feeling?”

Miles shrugged.  “Better.  Better each day. I just needed to rest.  I wish I had a week.”

“The last show, it took a lot out of you.”

“They all take a lot out of me.”

“I wish you had a week, too,”  Sera said, sincerely.

“If we ask them to put off the show, do you think they would?”  Miles grinned sardonically across the dimming coals.

“That would be a lot of refunds,” Sera joked back.

“Yeah.  The show must go on.”  Miles and Sera lapsed into silence, still shivering in the cold night air, the fire burning down.

In the morning they broke camp and joined the migration of people headed towards Fort Anthem.  They trudged across the uneven Plains, stepping around clumps of brush and wild grasses.  Most of the people near them were on foot, too.  None came closer than a couple of hundred yards.  Some traveled in vehicles pulled by men or beasts, a very few were running on fuel, chugging and jostling over the ground, pumping out exhaust fumes.  They did not see a group larger than thirty or so people.  Some caravans hoisted black flags to show they carried the sick, the dying, and the dead.  Some hoisted yellow flags to show they were ‘munes.  Some hoisted blue flags to show they were uninfected, and the ones on those caravans kept diligent watch around them, guns in holsters and rifles slung over shoulders.

Between all the caravans, the groups of motorcycles rumbled like packs of wolves among bison.  They moved with impunity, swooping close to each caravan, even the armed ones.  Whatever munitions the blue flags had, the bikers always had them outgunned.  Sometimes they would just circle a caravan, inspecting the pilgrims and their vehicles.  Occasionally they would draw close, someone would dismount, and parley.  The caravans and the vehicles of the yellow flags were almost always stopped and searched, some looted, before the bikers resumed their patterns of stalking and intervention.

Miles and Sera had avoided contact with the bikers of New Patriot’s Town.  Over the week’s travel they had not been molested at all.  Two lone people on foot, flying no flag, their possessions on their backs, attracted little interest from the men on motorcycles.

Approaching Fort Anthem, and facing encounters with the Fort’s own security forces, the bikers were consolidating along the route to the east entrances.  They were swinging by and taking closer looks at everyone, including Miles and Sera.

At midday, about a mile from the barrier fences and walls that protected Fort Anthem, Miles saw two riders making a straight line for them, clouds of dust and clumps of dirt spraying from their tires.  Instinctively he tightened his grip on his backpack straps and shared a look with Sera.  Sera pressed her lips together and rolled her shoulders.  “Don’t worry,” was all she said, and they kept their pace towards the Fort.

The bikers circled them once and stopped directly in front of them, blocking their path.  Miles and Sera stopped and stood, looking back at the two grizzled, grimy, well-armed men.  Their engines rumbled loudly and when they turned them off, it made the silence on the Plains seem more pronounced.  No one was close by, and no one far off appeared to take an interest.

One man lifted his dirt-stained goggles onto his unwashed forehead.  His faded denim jacket had the name “Ray” sewn over the breast pocket. “Ray” had a towel across his lower face as a makeshift face mask, protecting his nose and mouth from the dust, and presumably, infection.  Sera crushed down a sardonic grin.  Pete wasn’t the only thing that could still make you sick.

“Where you comin’ from?” Ray demanded without courtesy or a hint of friendliness.  His hands had dropped to the buts of two mismatched handguns in his belt.  He had the lean but well-fed look of those from New Patriot’s Town.

“Cross City,” answered Sera, calmly and casually.  “Been travelin’ a week.  Good afternoon, by the way.”  

Miles groaned inwardly.  Stick to the story with no sass, he said to her in his head.  It was her rule, after all, made to make him keep his mouth shut.

Ray was unmoved.  He narrowed his very blue eyes and looked Miles’s tall frame up and down.  “You ain’t flying no ribbons, no flags,” he said, with a tone of accusation.  “What’s your situation?”

As they had rehearsed, Sera lifted her hands, palms out, then slowly reached to the breast pocket of her worn jacket.  Ray stiffened and gripped the guns, but said nothing.  Sera slowly pulled a strip of clean yellow fabric from her pocket and showed it to the biker.  He looked over at Miles, who performed the same rehearsed moves, showing that he, too, carried a yellow cloth.  Ray relaxed a little, and Sera spoke.

“We weren’t looking for company, so we didn’t advertise,” she said, still calm and casual.

“You got the marks?” Ray asked, behind the facemask.

Again, with rehearsed slowness, they drew up their right sleeves until they exposed the yellow-green bioluminescent tattoos on their forearms.  Ray dismounted while his partner unslung the AR15 on his back.  Ray approached Sera and peered at her arm.  The tattoo glowed in clean, regular, organized lines under her warm brown skin.  People had tried to counterfeit the tattoos in the early years, but  the ones issued by the government were unmistakable.  Ray checked Miles’ arm, then stared at his face for a long time, as if Miles fit the description of someone.  Finally he stepped back until he could keep both of them in his field of vision.  Satisfied, he pulled down his facemask.

“If you don’t need a cure, whatcha doin’ here?” he asked, less threateningly by only a couple of degrees.

Sera shrugged.  “We need work.  Big gathering like this, bound to be work.  I’m nursing.  He’s maintenance and sanitation.”  She indicated Miles with a jerk of her head.

Ray looked at Miles closely again.  “Don’t you talk?” he asked Miles, his threatening up a notch again.

Miles glanced at Sera and indicated her with a similar jerk of his head.  “Only when she runs outta steam,” he said.

The biker stared piercingly at Miles for a long moment, then his dirty face split into a wide smile and he barked out a guttural laugh.  “Ha ha!  Hey, Chuck, we got a comedian here!”  Ray relaxed and stepped back again.  “Whatcha got in the sacks?” he asked, motioning to their backpacks.

“Rabbit jerky, corn pone, pea powder… not much else,” Miles answered.

“What else?” Ray asked, his suspicious tone rising.

“Traveling clothes, blankets, a bar of soap between us, grease to keep the lice off.”

“You carrying guns?” asked Ray, all trace of humor gone.

“Guns are trouble,”  Miles said inoffensively.  “We don’t want trouble.”

“Ask ‘em if they seen any clowns!” Chuck spoke sharply from his perch on his cycle.  He had pulled down his facemask but Miles hadn’t noticed because his thick and untrimmed beard hid the lower half of his face as effectively as the scarf.

“How’s that?” Miles asked, a questioning look on his face.

“You said you’se up from Cross Creek.  You two seen clowns in Cross Creek?”  Chuck didn’t have anymore of a sense of humor than his partner, and he held the rifle a little too ready for use.

“We came through Cross Creek,” Sera replied, hoping the tension wasn’t noticeable in her voice.  “We’re from further East, closer to Rock Bridge.”

“The question stands,”  Ray said, looking at them both closely again.

“What?  Clowns?  What do you mean?”

“You’se a nurse, you said,” Chuck barked from his seat.  “Them clowns always around sick kids and such.”

“I still don’t understand,” Sera motioned helplessly with her hands.

Miles stared at the ground in front of his boots. “The Clown Who Heals,” he said quietly.  “The clown who dances and sings, and cures the Pete.”

Both Ray and Chuck focused on him.  Sera fidgeted, unnoticed by the men. Ray nodded.

Miles shook his head.  “Nobody like that exists.  We’ve seen clowns, mostly drunks and people with no serviceable skills whose only way to earn bread is to put on facepaint and a costume, then try to make people laugh.  Never seen anybody get better from the Pete once it settled in, not by medicine, prayer, or balloon animals.”

Ray looked back at Sera.  “That so, Miss Nurse?” he said.  

Sera shrugged and nodded.  “Yeah, right — a clown who makes people better.  Sure…right.  Can you imagine?  If all of this” —she waved her arm expansively—“could be fixed by some jokester with a rubber nose?  If —” voice cracking, she caught herself.  She looked at the ground, and felt Ray’s blue eyes now boring into her.

“She’s seen a lot of people crash out,”  Miles offered, still quiet.  “Lots of kids.”

Sera squeezed her eyes shut tightly.

“Make ‘em empty them packs, Ray,” Chuck said coldly.  Miles felt his stomach sink.

About two hundred yards away, shouts and shots broke out from a small blue-flagged caravan, stopped by another group of motorcycles.  They all looked sharply as one of the canvas-covered trucks erupted in flames.  Gunshots popped from multiple sources.  They could discern people running, ducking, and yelling.

“Hot damn, Ray!”  Chuck said, the engine on his bike roaring to life.  Ray gave Miles and Sera an uncertain glance, then ran back to his own bike.  Ray and Chuck tore away from them, slinging dirt and small rocks, bouncing over the landscape towards the conflagration.

Miles and Sera started walking again, their pace quicker, edged with panic.  Sera looked at the conflict and saw a woman running from the caravan.  There was the crack of a shot, and the woman fell forward as if violently pushed.  Sera looked away.

“That was really close.  If we’d had to open our packs…” Miles’s voice was shaken.

“Let’s get to the city,” Sera said in a cracked voice.  “Once there, everything will be okay.”

“Sure,” Miles said, looking at the ground.  “Sure it will be.”