Quarantine
by Pan
3:
“Jeff.”
“Fitt.”
The two men shook hands, then went back to staring blankly as the shuttle began rolling out. Two-person pods had become the norm well before Deltasol had been founded; the only real downside was that when transport was in demand, one would sometimes get stuck with a complete stranger as a traveling companion.
“Miner.”
“Oh?”
“Coal, mostly.”
“Oh!”
Fitt laughed nervously.
“Sorry, I thought you said minor. Like minor…child.”
Jeff chuckled as well.
“Do I look like a child?”
“I guess not.”
“Lawyer.”
“Lawyer?”
“Well, in-training.”
“Huh.”
It was a reaction Fitt got a lot. A man of his age was expected to have been in the same career for at least a decade—he was, after all, only fifteen years away from a mandatory retirement.
“Used to be a farmer, but I just hated it, you know?”
“I hear you.”
“You like mining?”
“You know what? I do.”
Jeff wasn’t lying. He was a third-generation miner, and he didn’t spring out of bed each morning singing “Hi Ho”, but there was a certain visceral satisfaction to what he did. It was solo work, which he preferred, but there was still a sense of camaraderie, and after work he could always find a coworker (or six) to grab a drink with.
“Any symptoms so far?”
“Not for me. You?”
“Well…”
Fitt hesitated. He knew he should have answered with a flat ‘no’—whenever anyone learned that he’d had symptoms, he was always met with the same series of questions.
Not that he blamed them, of course. Everyone was dying to know what was happening, what the virus did.
The trouble was, he wasn’t even sure if his symptoms were really symptoms. It could just have been part of turning forty.
Jeff was staring at him curiously. Fitt sighed; it was his own fault for bringing it up. He just wanted—no, needed—to know if anyone else was experiencing what he was experiencing.
“A few things,” he said. “But I don’t know if they’re connected.”
“Go on,” Jeff pushed, and Fitt began listing them, his mouth repeating the words he was sick of hearing.
“Huh,” Jeff said when he finished. He didn’t need to say any more.
The two men sat in an awkward silence for the rest of the trip.