It Got Worse
Year 0, Day 5
“It looks like a cat.”
Lalli’s dry observation seemed to echo in the stunned silence that followed the arrival of the strange-looking vehicle at their base of operations, a carefully unobtrusive warehouse buried amongst many others just like it in the much-reduced-but-still-truly-massive harbor complex. Ever since the multi-tracked vehicle had slllllllooooooowwwllllyyy pulled up to their door, Tuuri had been in an uncharacteristically shocked silence.
Eventually, a door on the side slid open, revealing a figure of medium size topped by a head bearing the same nose, eyes and hair as the other Hotakainens, so Mikkel felt it safe to assume this was another of their clan.
The sight jolted Tuuri out of her silence. “Onni!” she exclaimed in Finnish, “what are you doing here?”
Mikkel had a passing acquaintance with the Finn tongue, so he caught the gist of their conversation. From what they didn’t say, Mikkel gathered that Onni was more or less a complete shut-in; agoraphobe, anthrophobe, germophobe, and several other -phobes.
From what they did say, Mikkel gathered that Onni was also even better with computers than Lalli, so when he heard that Denmark was closing its borders, he’d plucked up his courage and joined his family, “borrowing” this semi-experimental vehicle from the training facility where it was being evaluated along the way.
“Blah blah blah positive air pressure blah blah advanced filtration and purification systems blah blah.” Tuuri was eating the tech talk up, while Sigrun and Emil looked increasingly bored. Lalli had already slipped into the vehicle to check out Onni’s hacking set-up, while Reynir had slipped back into the building to see whether he could whip up something nice for the new arrival.
“That’s all very nice,” Sigrun said, her tone contradicting her words, “but is there any, y’know, weaponry aboard?”
“Maybe just a flamethrower?” Emil asked, obviously trying not to sound too hopeful.
Onni looked nonplussed when Tuuri relayed the questions. His answer was obviously the Finnish for “no”.
“Well, that thing’s just a waste of space, then.” Sigrun crossed her arms truculently, if not outright pugnaciously.
“It got Onni here, which is good enough for me!” Tuuri flared up in another uncharacteristic outburst.
Emil butted in, trying to play peacemaker, but the two girls were already metaphorically snarling and growling at each other in preparation for an air-clearing brawl, ill-timed though it might be, so both verbally slashed at him until he retreated.
“YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS!”
The world seemed to stop in confusion. Lalli had screamed? Lalli, the quietest of the quiet? Then, into the silence, a professional ‘news presenter’ voice started speaking in Finnish.
“...confirmed that two of the original patients did die earlier today.”
As the news went on, Tuuri gave a rough translation, her voice thin with fear. No recoveries. No “in good condition”. No cure yet, or perhaps ever.
“What were you saying about the air filtration again?” Sigrun asked Onni quietly...
