The Plague {One Direction AU}

8. Artemisia

Los Alamos, NM
December 15

Artemisia went back to work. She didn't have the luxury of falling apart. The world, what was left of it, needed her. She couldn't grieve for the dead. She couldn't miss them. She couldn't worry about who was still alive and when she might see them again. She had to focus on the monumental task that had landed in her hands. Her hands, which shook uncharacteristically, reached again for the giant book on the desk.

Emergency Shut Down, US Nuclear Sites and Submarines.

Artie had been constructing a new energy amplifier when the flu had swept through the lab, a quiet rustling panic following in its wake. They had all felt pretty secure there at first. When the reports of a fast-spreading fatal flu first hit the news, they had gone on lock-down. No one in. No one out. But it hadn't mattered. They'd all succumbed. Artie had been locked in the building alone for the last few days, just hovering around the main workroom and break room, where she had raided the vending machines, disassembling the glass front so she could have whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it. Really, her life wasn't so different now. She ate out of those machines every day anyway.

The passcodes to unlock the building were lost when the site security manager died, but Artie knew she could get out when she was ready. She could build anything... she could take anything apart. She would find a way out of here when she was done. She just had to finish the work first. Work that would keep her and all the other survivors around the nation safe. She had to power down every nuclear energy plant and weapons facility in the country. No big deal.

She had been eating a Cup Noodle with chopsticks when the large screen in the main work room lit up a few days ago, a presidential seal emblazoned on the screen. Artie stopped and stared at the screen. They had all heard rumors of the president's demise the day before. Before the fall. It wasn't the president who appeared on the screen; it was a man dressed in full fancy military garb, dark blue or black with gold accents and many many medals or ribbons or pins. She didn't know what to call them. Artie had never paid much attention to the armed services, even though many of her colleagues there at Los Alamos had served, and the building, tucked away in the heavily forested hills above Santa Fe, was protected by a military detail.

"I am acting commander in chief, General Steven Spall. Please identify your name and rank," he commanded. He was perfect for the job, Artie thought sarcastically. But, Jesus, she realized that if a general she had never heard of was commander in chief, that meant nearly everyone--no absolutely everyone--elected into federal office had died.

"Uh," Artie shrugged. She gave her full first and last name, then said, "I don't have a rank."

"What is your title?" He coughed impatiently.

Shit. The acting commander in chief was sick too. Who the hell would be in charge when he kicked it? "I'm a nuclear engineer."

"Good. I've been trying to reach anyone I can at our nuclear sites. Can you--" he broke into a loud fit of coughs. "I need you to shut down all the nuclear facilities, ma'am. There is a passbook in the safe in the site security manager's office. The code is 7715020194. It will have--" he coughed violently again, "instructions for how to access each site."

Artie nodded wordlessly.

"Your country thanks you," he turned away, coughing as the screen cut out.

It had taken her almost 24 hours just to shut down the submarines, the eastern seaboard, and the Midwest, but there were a fraction as many sites here in the west, so she should be done by the end of the day. When the phone rang again this afternoon, she answered right away, expecting another government official. It wasn't. And she was irritated by the interruption. There was still so much to do. She didn't have time to chitchat.