The Universal Vaccine: After Normal, #1

By Nancy Smith

A University of Texas at Austin art student comes home to find police on her doorstep. They tell her that her microbiologist mother and engineer father as well as all of her parents' coworkers are dead. Isa wants to understand what happened.  She enlists the assistance of an investigative journalist to find out. The pair have no idea where this search will take them.

 

This book is first in a trilogy called After Normal. It takes place in a period from the year 2003 to 2045. When I started writing these books they were near future science fiction, but the world  quickly caught up. The books describe a world crumbling to ruin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: First Look Publishing (Austin)
• Release date: Jan 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985498325

Nancy Smith

Nancy Smith is a freelance writer of novels, screenplays and short stories. She is also a filmmaker, script analyst, and script supervisor. Nancy is the owner of First Look Script Analysis, operating since December 2005 and First Look Publishing operating since 2016. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Book preview

Part I

Chapter 1

August 2025

One minute it was a hot, sunny August day in Austin, Texas. The sky was that color of blue that gives azure its name, fading as it moved toward the horizon to a hue so light that it was almost white. The next minute flumes of yellow smoke spiked the sky followed by swirls of gray.

Rory Burke didn’t need the police scanner in his car to hear the explosion that went off just north of downtown. Automatically, his foot went to the brake on his car, but then he had to swerve to avoid other cars doing the same thing. His chest pounded with an adrenaline-fueled mixture of fear and excitement.

He spun his car around and drove away from the blast at top speed. When he reached an intersection where he could not go farther, he shut the vents in his car, put on two disposable masks and waited until the toxic cloud that followed him to disperse.

He opened a window and filmed the cloud of smoke that billowed on the horizon with his cell phone. He sent the video to his news station, KNUS, with the caption breaking news. He wrote a couple sentences about what he saw and a note saying that he was checking it out.

When it seemed safe, Rory drove toward the disaster. He powered down Guadalupe Street on the west side of the University of Austin campus past stores and fast food places. Rory parked his car along the side of the suddenly empty street and walked cautiously toward the pillar of smoke.

Hordes of students stood on the sidewalks texting from cell phones or taking video of the noxious cloud. Rory got out his phone and joined them. He sent a second video to KNUS noting that the explosion was just west of the UT campus.

He turned the corner on San Antonio Street and walked toward the plume. He strolled down the blocks beyond campus that were lined with fraternity and sorority houses, real estate and leasing offices and condos—lots of condos.

At the scene, there was fire and debris along with the toxic smoke. The trouble seemed to be centered at the Women’s Free Clinic. The building was old and looked out of place among the modern, tall condos that surrounded it.

Rory had done a story on the great work of this clinic—the work they had done, past tense, he thought looking at the ruin of the brick building and the glass blown from the tall arched windows.

Rory coughed; the yellow smoke irritated his throat and lungs.

He texted the station to tell them what he was seeing and then continued shooting video with his phone. He stopped the first person he saw.

"Rory Burke, KNUS. He pronounced it K-news. Can you tell me what happened here?"

Back it up, Bub. This guy had on an unfamiliar uniform with no insignia beyond the word Security on his vest and ball cap, both that olive-green color that they called army green. He sported a gun on his hip. Rory backed up a bit. When the guard was no longer focused on him, Rory took a picture of him.

Rory had heard the explosion. He’d seen the flames shoot into the sky, yet there was a full response team already here. He found that odd. Who were these guys? They had cordoned off the area and were already bringing out full body bags—lots of body bags. Rory counted ten before he stopped.

He saw some activity down the street and went to check it out. More unmarked guards put up barricades at the alley. Rory took a picture of one as he carried boards and a hammer down the back street, probably to board up the back door to the clinic.

Nothing to see here, Bub. His new name seemed to be Bub. Rory walked back toward the front of the clinic.

I’m a doctor, a frazzled woman rushed up to him. Rory guessed that she was from the clinic. I want to help.

There’s no need for a doctor here, a uniform said.

Rory turned to the doctor. What happened? he asked.

Boom and whoosh, she said. Just that fast. I was getting out of my car parked over there. She pointed across the street and halfway down the block to a pay lot. I’ve never seen anything like it, she said in a shocked voice. She coughed and her voice sounded raw. Rory noticed that her skin was red and blistered.

You should have an EMT look at you, Rory said. Smoke inhalation can be dangerous.

I told you to get out of here, the uniform told Rory and his new friend. Degas, he yelled at someone. Pull a team. Get these people out of here. No people. You hear me?

All the hairs were standing up on the back of Rory’s neck. This was so wrong.

This is so wrong, the doctor echoed his own thoughts.

Emergency vehicles were just beginning to arrive. Also odd, Rory thought. He walked the doctor over to an ambulance as it pulled up, so she could be checked out.

Would you comment on camera? Rory asked the doctor.

Chapter 2

Isa Vedkka threw her heavy art portfolio over her shoulder and pushed out the door of the art department at the University of Texas. She had been buried in a basement studio all day. The outside air was orange and smelled like abandoned and burned bar-b-que. It felt heavy on her lungs—like when the Saharan dust storms blew through Austin.

She had a long walk across campus and then a good mile and a half into the neighborhood in the heat of the day.

She’d left the house that morning to the sound of her parents having their usual morning discussion.

Hurry up, Dad said, or it will be too late.

Too late for what? Mom countered.

It’ll be too hot to walk. We’ll have to take the car.

What would be the point of that? Once we find parking, we’ll have to walk almost as far as from here.

Isa tsked at the memory.

It was a lovely two-mile walk from her house to campus in the early morning. In the neighborhood, the sound of sprinklers on the lawns was accented by the sound of birds singing in the leaves of the trees. The birds twittered as the water hit them. Walkers in teams of two or three strolled with their dogs on leashes, each group calling out a friendly hello. Runners, some with jogging strollers, made the bike path their own, much to the vexation of the many bikers, who yelled out On your left. Eventually homes gave way to buildings and crowded streets.

Once on campus, students hustled from building to building to get to their first class of the day. Some students sat on the wall of the West Mall and chatted with each other. Others lined up at the coffee cart for a little morning jolt.

Isa sat on the wall for a few minutes each day before her first class. Isa had wanted to be one of the popular kids in high school, but she wasn’t. She wanted to be one of the smart kids, but she hadn’t pulled that off either. She wanted to date in high school, but she rarely had. Her first real friend was Mira Burke whom she had met on a beautiful morning sitting on the wall.

What her parents never seemed to remember— or at least comment on—is the fact that Isa had to walk home in the heat of the late afternoon. It was blisteringly hot and she had left her water bottle at home. She would have loved to stop and buy a bottle of water or an iced drink, but she had no money with her. Being such a regular customer, she might have been able to get water on credit from the coffee cart guy, but he was gone for the day. People had retreated indoors and shut the windows and doors tightly. They’d sit in air conditioning until the sun went down and it was safe to go outside again. Austin’s summer outdoor world was essentially over by 10:00 a.m. at the latest.

Isa wore shorts and a ball cap. She had two shirts—a tank top covered by a button-down splotched in still-wet paint. The second shirt served both as a paint apron and to keep her warm in the unnaturally cold, air-conditioned classrooms. She took it off, turned it inside out and rolled it up.

Isa was a graduate student and worked part-time as a teaching assistant in the art department. That meant she had to carry a heavy art portfolio of student work. It was large and awkward and could easily be replaced with digital images if the professor would allow it, but he wouldn’t. Isa shuffled the portfolio, her backpack with her books and art supplies, and the paint shirt in her hands.

Isa plodded toward her house in one hundred and three degree heat. A cold front was promised for later in the day that may lower the temperature by ten or twelve degrees, but it hadn’t yet arrived. The only liquid around was coming from her pores. The only singing was the hum of one air-conditioning unit and then the next. By the time she left campus and reached the trees of the neighborhood, she needed to stop and rest.

She sat down on the top of three steps overhung by lush tree branches. The steps led to a sidewalk that led to a two-story four-square. A leasing company used this traditional home as its office space. Sometimes the agent’s assistant came out and brought her a glass of ice water, but not today. The only way to get water was to get home. Isa stuffed her hopefully dry paint shirt into her backpack and began walking again.

Isa would finish art school at the end of the Fall semester. She was twenty-four, living with her parents, and looking for a nonexistent job in art history in Austin, Texas. She had no idea what she was going to do next.

Her friend, Mira, was twenty-six, a couple years older than her. She was graduating law school with a world of possibilities open to her. All Mira had to do was pick. Isa should have been smarter in her degree choice.

Halfway up the sidewalk to her parents’ traditional-style, two-story house, two men in suits blocked her progress. One wore a J.C. Penny special in blue. The other wore a slick-cut, tailored black suit with a white shirt and skinny black tie. Black Suit was cool as a cucumber, but Blue Suit had a thick sheen on his forehead and a slightly rancid smell. She suspected that they had been waiting for a while.

Isabel Vedkka? Black Suit spoke but both flashed badges. She didn’t have time to read them.

Yes.

We need you to come with us.

Who are you? What do you want?

They said nothing.

Let me see those badges again.

Reluctantly, they handed over their badges. The one who spoke was from some private security firm that only used initials—DSG. The other, cheap Blue Suit, was with the Austin Police Department.

Look, she glanced at Black Suit’s badge, Mr. John Williams. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know this company and I’m not getting into, she looked toward the street, an unmarked black SUV with you. I’m just not. She pointed to the chairs on the front porch. Why can’t we talk here and now? She knew the answer to that. They wanted complete control over her. They were going to find out that that wasn’t so easy to do.

Mom and Dad had had some trouble at the last place where they worked, a business called the Wagner Company. Dad had been irrational and paranoid since then, but in a cute, forgivable way. He repeatedly said that you should never give up control to strange men in dark suits, never get into unmarked cars and never tell more than asked when answering questions.

Blue Suit spoke for the first time.

I could send for a police car if you like, if that would make you feel more comfortable. He’d meant it sarcastically.

She looked at his badge. Actually, it would, Detective Victor Jimenez. Thank you. She still wasn’t sure she would go easy with these men. Should I call my lawyer," Isa asked even though she didn’t have a lawyer.

Isa noticed a third man hanging out at the bushes near the corner of the house. His head, covered in bright strawberry-blond curls popped around the corner. She almost laughed, but she had been trained too well to do that in front of the police. Blank face always.

He was maybe a tiny bit older than her, nice-looking in a goofy sort of way. Red wore navy cargo shorts with stuffed pockets and a blue rumpled button-down short-sleeve shirt. She couldn’t imagine that he was with these two. She and Red looked at each other for a minute. He smiled at her showing all his straight, white teeth.

Better yet, Isa said. I’ll drive my own car and meet you at the station. Which one?

As she made this pronouncement, a marked police car pulled up to the curb. Two Austin Police Department officers stepped out. Between the four of them, they escorted her into the back seat. Isa felt that if she refused again, manhandling of some sort may follow.

As they pulled out, Isa looked at Red in the bushes. He raised one finger to his lips. She wasn’t sure if he was suggesting that she shouldn’t talk to the police or that she shouldn’t mention him, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to do either.

Chapter 3

Isa had been in this ugly interrogation room with its peeling green paint for over an hour.

May I please have a glass of water?

They were withholding.