Blue Plague, Red Redemption

Chapter 3: Damien Parnell

Parnell looked out the windows of his penthouse for the last time taking in the view. There was a cluster of newish luxury high-rises in East Boston across the water from him, similar in design to the one he was in, but in a less desirable location, and thus much cheaper. His eyes drifted down and settled on the harbor. This would be the last time he'd see water like this for a while. He snickered at the thought of how sentimental most people were. He hardly ever looked down at the water. It was more about the status of being able to.

A plane was coming up from the airport runway just beyond the high-rises and he pursed his lips in mild irritation. He had a flight to catch and could have gotten to the airport in two minutes by air-taxi from his roof compared to who knows how long by car. He could see the snarled-up traffic coming out of the tunnel on the other side of the harbor and knew it was going to be an unpleasant trip.

"Anton, how long will it take me to get to the airport by ground taxi?"

"Good morning, Mr. Parnell," replied a respectful yet slightly dour voice in his earpiece. "I see you have a flight today. With the current traffic conditions, it will take approximately 45 minutes to get to Departures at Logan Airport."

He curved his mouth together into not quite a smile. "Call me a taxi, Anton. I'm on my way down."

"Certainly, sir."

Parnell came out the front of the building with a small shoulder bag and saw the robotaxi waiting for him. He got in through the front right door and the taxi drove off. He didn't need to tell it where to go, his personal AI, Anton, had already taken care of that.

"Sir, there is heavy traffic along the most direct route," announced the robotaxi with a subtle twang of the Boston accent. "May I take a detour that will save us approximately six minutes?"

"Happy to shorten the time I'm in here. Please do." Anything to get there faster. Back in Ireland, cars were required to have steering wheels and some people still learned to drive. His father had insisted on it and he was grateful he got to drive himself around when he was in uni. When he moved to the states for grad school two decades ago, he discovered he would often get nauseated whenever someone else was in control, especially the robotaxies, which lacked a certain organic finesse.

"Sir," alerted the robotaxi, "your route has been terminated. You may select a new route or request a refund."

"Lovely. What's going on?" he asked with an incredulous smile across his face.

"Logan Airport has been placed in a restricted zone, which I may not enter."

"Why is it restricted all of a sudden?" insisted Parnell, maintaining a polite tone despite his irritation.

"I don't have access to that information, sir," replied the robotaxi, entirely unphased by the moderately emotional passenger inside of it.

"Anton, do you know what's going on at the airport?"

"I can look that up for you, sir," declared Anton. "Here are the relevant headlines from the last fifteen minutes: Glacier Virus Detected at Logan,' 'Logan Airport Quarantined,' Epidemic Spreads to Boston'..."

"I get it, you can stop," interrupted Parnell. "Shit." He sat there for a minute as the robotaxi pulled over to the side of the road. "Anton, call the Red Planet Executive Search Team."

"Of course, sir," reassured Anton.

Parnell heard a few tones in his earpiece to assure him that a phone call was, indeed, happening.

An unusually happy voice had answered the call. "You've reached the REST reception desk. This is Kim, your AI secretary. How can I help you this morning?"