Chapter 27: Chapter 26 – The COVID Comes from the Level-4 COVID Lab

Hoa, Tin, and I go to Thienchua International Port, to see the visiting John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier. But we're told the arrival of the carrier has been postponed. A Comet Cruise Line ship carries passengers to a concert in Yulu, and we board the ship. It carries the passengers to the concert at Health Game Market. While the concert is playing, we walk around the market. Where the Lunar Month Feast has been held, the restrained animals are still flopping on the ground since three days ago, and the trays of dried-up Longevity Salad are still left on the serving tables.

Tin says, "The bar owner disappeared under the counter after he had delivered the pangolins and bats to the van driver. I wonder if there's a hidden route under the counter."

"Let's go there and see," Hoa says.

We start going but stop when we hear through the trees people talking in cautious fearful voices. I look through the trees. "Oh, it's only Chan and Nam who are talking."

Chan says, "I work as a trainee in the Level-4 COVID Lab, a maximum security lab where some COVID virus is submitted to undergo many genetic mutations. My work is to research the development of a COVID vaccine.

"A colleague of mine had dropped a basket containing vials of the live mutated COVID virus into a test tube washer, and the vials broke. She reported the incident to her supervisor.

"Health Officers showed up, shoved my colleague into the security hut on the canal near the market, and said, 'Don't be a whistleblower. You must not tell what happened. You will cause social panic.'

"Some people who work in the lab got in trouble for speaking up about the COVID virus gaining the ability to spread from person to person. Since I work in the lab, I fear for my safety. If you don't see me again, you know what might have happened to me."

Nam says, "There's a virus spread going on, but the authorities don't want anyone to hear about it. So they pretend things are normal. I wonder how the COVID virus passed from the lab to the Health Game Market."

Chan says, "The water lines from the test tube washer lead out to the market, where the water is also used in preparing food."

From the security hut, a guard is walking toward Chan and Nam, and they run away into the Assassin Jungle. We run back to the dock, cross the gangway, and get on the ship.

As our ship is pulling slowly into the port, a Port Security Officer speaks on loudspeaker, "Sail the ship back to Yulu. All passengers and the crew are to be quarantined in Yulu, and must be tested for COVID."

Crew members and passengers disembark from the cruise ship and walk to the quarantine building.

People who show symptoms of being infected with COVID are hooked up to ventilators that measure oxygen level, blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate.

Tin and Hoa have been tested negative for COVID, so they have been allowed to walk out the door. A Health Worker has collected my nasal swab sample for COVID testing. I start making my way towards the exit door in anticipation of a negative COVID test, but stop upon hearing the announcement: "The test reading machine is broken."

I'm put in a room with one glass wall facing the Level-4 COVID Lab.

Through the glass wall, I see a woman, wearing a poncho even though it's not raining, walk-in stoop. As she comes near the wall, she lifts up her face and I recognize Mom. I wave and smile, but she keeps on walking past the wall. I shout, "I'm in here, Mom," but she doesn't turn around.

I pound on the wall with my fist, and she pauses and turns around, blinking her eyes. Suddenly her eyes grow wide, and she quickly runs back to stand in front of me. I put my hands on the wall, and Mom puts her hand on mine on the other side of the wall.

A policeman comes and brandishes a club at them, and points them toward a road. They keep looking at me while backing away from the wall, tears streaming down their cheeks. When they reach the road, they turn and wave toward me before disappearing around the corner.

I sit down on the floor, blaming the reading machine for untimely being broken, and so putting me in a bind. Just as I'm about to doze off, Chan wearing a white lab coat comes in front of the glass wall and holds up a placard with a handwriting statement that says, "Mai, you tested negative for COVID. You're free to go. Go to the exit door." Then he runs away into the trees.

I quickly make my way to the door, walk out of the quarantine building, and head toward the Gold Nuggets River to go home. I sit down on the riverbank, beside a sign that says, "Floating Village." the village's inhabitants live and make a living by selling food and produce right from their boats. Tall poles are set up right from the boats, and other poles are set horizontally across the upright poles. Items representing what's being sold are hung along the horizontal poles.

A boat has long noodle strings hanging from its horizontal poles, and I order noodle soup with Peking duck from the boat. The vendor puts my steaming soup bowl and chopsticks and a spoon on one end of a wooden plank that rests across the flanks of the boat. Then she pushes the plank toward where I sit until the plank's end carrying the soup and the eating utensils rests on the riverbank. I pick up my order but keep the plank in place. When I finish eating, I put the empty bowl and the eating utensils, and the money to pay for the soup on the plank. The vendor pulls the plank back into the boat.

I remain sitting on the riverbank, taking a long look around at the vast area of water. I squirm at catching a glimpse of two faces in the undergrowth.

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Hoa's voice comes from the undergrowth. "Mai's just sitting there."

"Hey, what are you two doing there?" I say.

Tin says, "We're on our way back to the quarantine camp to ask for you. When did you get out of there?"

I'm relieved. "I've just gotten here directly from the camp. Guess what, Chan managed to get me out of there!"

Tin says, "OK, you have Chan to thank for being able to be here now. He said he works in the Level-4 COVID Lab. Let's go there to check on him."

A voice comes from the trees, "I'm here going to work."

"Do you mind if we come along?" I say.

Chan pauses, and then says, "Sure, you can. But we should be very careful to avoid danger or trouble."

We reach a floating gangway and cross it to get to the dock behind the Level-4 COVID Lab. A sign hanging on the back door says, "Closed."

Chan swipes his electronic card key through the card reader on the wall, and we enter the building. The door to the room where Chan works is wide open, but there are no lights on at all in the room. Chan flips on the light switch by the door, but it doesn't work. Spikes of sunlight come through small glass panels set in the wall near the ceiling. He opens the grille of a wall cabinet, saying, "This is where viral test tubes are kept." But the cabinet has been cleared out.

Red light from the motion detector mounted near the ceiling starts blinking and an emergency siren starts sounding. Chan herds us toward a narrow hallway. "We must get through the security hatch cut into the ceiling, and from there, we can get to the outside."

We patter on the ceiling until we come to a hissing brown wall, with electric sparks splattering from the wall.

"Keep away from the wall. It's electrified," Chan says. 

A metal ladder is perched against the wall, with the top of the ladder leaning against the sill of a narrowly opened window on the wall. But the ladder is hissing, too.

"Is the ladder also electrified?" I say.

Chan nods. "I wonder why there is light in that normally isolated corner. You all stay right here waiting for me. I'll go and check. I'll be right back"

Chan comes back carrying a box containing folders of documents on research and development. He says, "Let's see if we can hide this box somewhere outside of this building."

I see a folder labeled "COVID for biological warfare."

"We can hide the box in a nook in the Skyscraper Tree trunk," Hoa says.

I look up at a hole in the ceiling. A cage with rattling pangolins inside is placed blocking part of the hole. I say, "We are under the counter of the stall bar at the Health Game Market. The market is closed at this time."

Chan rolls a utility ladder out of the corner and places it under the hole. Chan and Tin climb up the ladder and push the cage out of the way. Then we all get out of the lab by the ceiling's hole.

We hide the box containing the COVID lab's document in the Skyscraper Tree trunk.

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