Immunity Index by Sue Burke (ebooks children's books free txt) 📕

She checked cleaning-supply levels. Not ideal. She ordered more supplies, doubting they would actually arrive. Nothing seemed certain anymore, and any minute now corporate would notice that she was a god. She ought to go upstairs and check on Old Man Tito and another employee who’d just come in, Donella. How useful was Berenike, really, standing there and answering phone calls? Customer usage followed no normal pattern for 8:45 A.M., but if she saw a new pattern she could use it to create better service for the people who really needed it.

The city called. The Health Department’s City Hall office needed cars. “Our contract gives us priority service in an emergency.”

“I’d give it to you anyway. Tell me what you want.” Dirae had said City Hall was solid purple, from the mayor to the cops to public works.

“We need six cars.”

Is that all? “Give me thirty minutes. We’re cleaning them now.”

“Fine.” The woman sounded reasonable. There wasn’t a lot of that going around. “We might want more later.”

“You can have whatever you want.”

As she was juggling the fleet’s assignments, her screen beeped: a new company-wide order. “Local states of emergency do not have the force of law. Those declarations will not be enforced on our services to customers or on our employees. Customer orders have priority.” Then there were a couple of paragraphs of corporate self-promotional bilge. “We salute our employees for their service to our customers.”

Wow, that was stupid even for corporate headquarters. It must be getting pressure from somewhere. But she had the godlike power to disobey.

Another call came in from a distraught, clueless customer. “I’m late for brunch.”

“Stay home.” She hung up.

She turned on the intercom to talk to the two employees upstairs: “There’s a public health emergency, but you know that. You can go home if you want. But if you want to stay, I’d appreciate that.”

“Is it still double pay?” Old Man Tito asked.

“Yep. Says so right here on my screen.”

“Then let’s get cleaning.”

What they needed was more cleaning equipment and robots, and that wasn’t going to happen.

Delivery services also wanted cars. Unless they were for medical supplies, she put them at the back of the line, which meant afternoon at the earliest.

She returned to her desk. Upstairs, Donella and Old Man Tito chatted as they worked. The intercom was still on.

“It’s Sino cold,” Donella said.

“No one’s saying that.”

“No one wants to start a panic.”

“Too late.”

A few minutes later, Berenike checked again and found no new news. It felt like a long time had passed. Old Man Tito had been working for ten hours. Berenike had put out a request for workers. She got two replies, two more than she expected.

The next call was identified as the Milwaukee Office of Emergency Management.

“I have to explain something difficult,” the woman said. “We’re going to commandeer your company’s services.”

“How bad are things?”

“I need to stress the importance of this.”

“My father died of that cold last night. It was … I just want to know.”

“I’m so sorry—”

“I’m saying I understand. You can have us. I’m just wondering how much trouble we’re in. Our customers are in a panic.” Berenike gripped the countertop, bracing for the answer.

“We honestly don’t know. This is growing exponentially. I don’t want to—”

“I’ll help. The company says not to, but I will.” Helping would be the biggest fuck you she’d ever been able to give it in her whole life.

“Thank you for that.”

Berenike thought a moment. “How about this: Right now, we’re cleaning every car after each use and spraying it down with disinfectant. We need to keep doing that. Customers need to get home, but I’m already prioritizing requests from the city Health Department. Just tell me what else you need. And hey, let me give you my personal number in case the company gets weird and tries to stop this.”

“I called the corporate office, and they said no, they couldn’t help. So I thought I’d try to contact individual offices. I have to warn you. I don’t know what will happen to you if you go against corporate.”

“I don’t care if they fire me.”

After a pause, the woman said, “Thank you. We need delivery trucks.”

“Just say how big, when, and where.”

What she wanted could be filled relatively easily and almost fast enough, and fulfilling that request left Berenike a little disappointed. She’d hoped the city was mounting a bigger effort.

Meanwhile, she was willing to buck corporate, but the others? She went upstairs.

“I’m in,” Tito said, but he was going home as soon as there was a replacement. He looked exhausted.

“I’m not,” Donella said. “I’ll call the cops. You can’t let them do that.”

“The cops work for the city.”

“I’ll have your job when this is over.”

“You might. But I think I can save people.”

Donella walked away, dropping her equipment as she did. Berenike followed her, picking it up.

“Fuck her,” Tito said. “I’ll work my fingers to the bone just to fuck the fucking company.”

She called the employees about to come in and told them the news. They both wanted to report for work anyway.

“Everybody needs cars,” one of them said.

Berenike couldn’t thank them enough. People like them kept the Earth in orbit.

The regional AutoKar office called a few minutes later. Donella must have complained. Berenike knew the regional manager, inefficient and bothersome.

“I hear you’re letting your office be commandeered.”

“Yes.” There wasn’t much more to say. Well, there was, fuck you, but she didn’t say it and felt proud of her self-control.

“They want not just your office, they want the whole regional fleet. Do you want to do that? Run the fleet for the government?”

“Um. Sure?” This had to be a trick question.

“Good. I can’t. I’ll get fired. I’ll switch over access. You know how to do this. You’ll have access to car usage, client databases, and personnel to call people in. That’s all. You don’t get to touch money.”

“So like this suboffice, just bigger.”

“Have you heard how bad things are?”

“Yes, I have, really bad.”

“Exactly. I’m glad you’re willing to do this.”

Maybe