by Pike, JJ
Hoyt addressed Klyon, ignoring Michael and Vinnie. “The unit will make camp here for the night. The three of you will take a set of rations apiece and head back here within eight hours.”
“If we don’t find her?” asked Klyon.
The General looked away. He didn’t need to do more. His orders, as often as not, were delivered in silence and without specifics. He let his men choose the maximum amount of danger on their own. If he spoke up he’d have had to give rational (or quasi-rational) orders. By saying nothing, he allowed Klyon to choose the Berserker route.
“Understood, Sir.” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess that Klyon would move heaven and earth to complete her mission and get that gold star on her chart from the general. She wanted to be one of the boys so bad.
She turned to Michael and Vincent—now “Rayton” and “Taylor.” Her friendly-chipper-harmless affect evaporating as the general walked away. “You heard the man, collect your rations and we’ll be on our way. We need to get going while we still have light.”
Taylor trotted toward the front of the convoy and the food supplies. He’d have friends in low places so he’d be set for food. If he finagled a few extra meal packs Michael wouldn’t complain. If Sgt. “not-your-friend-Emmie-any-more” Klyon kept them out there until they found Alice they’d need the extra provisions.
It came to him in a flash. He needed to be the one to find her.
“Give me two minutes. I’ll be right back.” He had skills none of them had seen; skills honed on sand, with a camel, and a turbaned guide who had one eye on his paycheck and the other on Rayton’s pistol. Upstate New York wasn’t the Middle East, but that was a good thing. He didn’t have to look out for…
He paused.
Shit. He did need to look out for most of the things he had to be aware of on deployment, though the enemy in this case was invisible for the most part: A sneaky, crawling, microscopic threat that had gnawed its way off Manhattan and across the Northeast.
Michael had a sweet-and-sour MRE in one pocket and his trusty box of matches in the other. He’d relied on the group for pretty much everything else he’d needed on the road, but he couldn’t saunter into the trees empty-handed. Not if he was going to find Alice.
He walked away from Klyon, aware that she had eyes on him at all times. Did he want her to know where he was going? The idea was only just forming in his mind so it didn’t much matter if she looked or not.
What could he reasonably ask for that wouldn’t raise eyebrows? Not a gun or a rifle. That was too obvious. They wouldn’t arm a civilian; not unless they were under attack. Hoyt didn’t believe Rayton “could handle a gun like a pro” and it suited Michael to let him think that. He’d only just regained Professor Baxter’s begrudging trust. He couldn’t raise his profile just yet.
He could ask for a large knife. They were going to be way off-road, crossing rough terrain. He jogged to the outskirts of a pack of soldiers and made his request. “For cutting dense foliage,” he said.
Sandrino, who doubled as the quartermaster, turned to his hand cart, rummaged for a second, and handed Michael a pocked and rusted machete. “Know how to use that without slicing off your own leg?” Sandrino didn’t look at Michael. It was a jibe for the troops.
Michael laughed with them. Not that they’d accept him as “one of the guys” but it was as well to look like you didn’t care what they thought. Made him less of a target and Michael Rayton was all about not looking like a target these days.
Klyon didn’t comment on his new accessory, though it smacked against his leg and caught the occasional ray of light in its heavily-patinaed surface.
“Ready to move out, Rayton?” She ran her fingers through the dog’s ruff, eyeing the thick vegetation for the easiest point of entry. “Maggie-loo’s not a tracker, but she’s fond of Alice so I think we can trust her to take us to our mark. What do you say, Taylor? You on board with that?”
Taylor nodded but didn’t look up. He was too busy cramming MREs into his backpack and making sure it was cinched.
“Right. Tight formation. No wandering off,” said Emmie.
Michael autocorrected in his mind. Emmie was now officially “Klyon” (and his boss); Vincent was “Taylor” (and his source of food); and he was “Rayton” (and the village idiot if that’s what they needed to believe in order to leave him to his own devices).
“What’s the plan?” said Taylor. “Do we stick together or spread out?”
Klyon had her hand on Maggie-loo’s head. “Someone bled. A lot. Stick to that trail and we’ll find her.” She was the warrior-soldier now, deadly serious. She barked orders at him and Taylor like a sergeant major on steroids. It was all, “frog march left and eyes right and here are ten hand signals I will be using in the field.”
The drone had returned, hovering high in the treetops. A second joined it. Then a third. Michael gawped skyward. Why so many? One would have done the trick. A single camera-mounted drone would tell their remote quartermaster where the convoy had stopped and the quartermaster would then direct the crop-duster to make the food drop nearby. Why use three when one would do? Rayton’s brain ran calculations, sorted percentages, calculated probabilities. Three drones. Three directions. The calculation came together slowly, but there was only one obvious conclusion. They were testing for aerial infection.
He and Zhang had run models to test for this possibility, but MELT wasn’t airborne. At least, it hadn’t been, back in the halcyon days of laboratories and containment and theoretical waxings. If Baxter was right—if MELT had mutated beyond their wildest nightmare—who could say? Even the original version of MELT would have chewed those drones into oblivion if it had made contact. But up there? In the air? The clouds? Raining down on them?
Upside: The drones weren’t falling apart which meant MELT wasn’t up there.
Yet.
The drones flashed a message, three short bursts of light and headed northwest.
In the distance, a com crackled to life. It made Michael’s scalp crawl. Without the radio (plastic casing, plastic wires, plastic everything) they’d be cut off from their orders but it still gave him chills.
The unit sprang into action. Everyone had their part to play. Usually, Michael would have taken shelter by himself, far from the crowd, but he was part of a team now and unsure of his next move. He took two strides before Klyon was in his face, using hand signals rather than verbal orders. What a tool. She was taking this way too seriously. In the months they’d been inching their way south the drones had done this exact dance before a food drop. Why treat it like they were rushing the beaches at Normandy? Everyone knew how this played out.
The scouts went out and collected the rations.
The rest of them waited. Quietly. Not drawing any more attention than was necessary to their location. There were stragglers out there. If anyone knew they had food, the hordes would come running.
Against his better judgement (his colleagues were too close, if one of them was infected they’d all catch it) Michael took cover behind a tree with Klyon and Taylor.
“We’ll stay until the scouts return,” said Klyon.
Alice was out there. Possibly bleeding. Shouldn’t they go? Now? Not wait? His boss operated with a military, rather than a logical, mind. No point fighting that one. They waited. He reached out to pet Maggie-loo but she gave him some serious side-eye and flashed her teeth. If she wanted to she could latch on to his throat and rip it out. No use trying to make friends with her now. She’d made her decision. He was not one of her pack. As long as she took them to Alice he didn’t much care.
The minutes ticked by. Maggie-loo had settled at Vincent’s feet and had graciously agreed to a back rub. Klyon never stood down. She maintained her “eyes forward” stance for the entire three hours and forty-seven minutes they were forced to crouch behind a tree.
Michael turned his sluggish brain to the issue of being a lab rat.
Everyone knew about Tuskegee. It had been the
first on Alice’s list of “your own government will conduct experiments on you if it chooses to do so.” 1932. Macon County, Alabama. Poor sharecroppers were offered free healthcare, meals and—of all the ghoulish things you could offer medical Guinea pigs—burial insurance for agreeing to be part of an experiment to track syphilis. The U.S. Public Health Service collaborated with the Tuskegee Institute to track the natural progression of untreated disease. Penicillin was proven an effective cure 1947, but the study continued until 1972.
Many of Michael Rayton’s countrymen didn’t know about their own country’s history of conducting illegal and unethical experiments on their citizens. It wasn’t just possible that was what they were doing now, it was probable. But what were they testing? Because it had to be big. To put Christine Baxter and Michael Rayton into the path of MELT took real balls and no brains. They were among a tiny handful of people who could unravel the mess they were in. So, why put them in danger?
Once again, Michael was struck by how little he felt. He wasn’t numb, just disconnected from the emotion that should have accompanied the realization that he was the subject of a horrific test.
Who was doing the testing?
What were they investigating?
How were they testing whatever it was they were testing?
Loosey-goosey thoughts that wouldn’t come into focus.
Who? What? How? Who, what how? WhoWhatHow?
His brain went round and round then down the drain. He had nothing and cared even less than that. He closed his eyes and let his brain drift off to places far more pleasant.
He woke to find Klyon in his face again. “They’re back. Let’s get going.”
The scouts split into three teams.
Michael was on his feet. That wasn’t what they usually did when they returned from a drop. Standard operating procedure was to stack the supplies at the back of the convoy so they could “naturally decontaminate” themselves over a five-day period. Once they’d reported on what they’d collected, Hoyt gave the okay to unpack X-amount of previously decontaminated food (X being dependent on how much new chow had been dropped), then they ate.
The first team trotted to the back of the convoy. Okay. So, they had food. Good.
The second team headed for the medical cart. Interesting. They rarely got new meds and he was pretty sure they were set for thyroid blockers for the week.
The third team. Holy crap. He couldn’t be sure, but they seemed to be in civvies. So, not soldiers. Not their people. Outsiders. Not good. Very not good. What were they doing bringing strangers back with them?
“Stay here.” Klyon stood and faced her men.
Taylor nodded.
“Rayton. Acknowledge.” She wasn’t going to leave until he gave her his answer so he did what every good soldier-boy does and gave her a salute. She wasn’t amused. “I want you both ready to move out as soon as I’ve secured our orders.”
What she meant was, “As soon as I’ve worked out what’s going on.”
Taylor held on to Maggie-loo while Klyon trotted off to check in with her elders and betters. Michael lost sight of her.
If he made a run for it Taylor wouldn’t stop him. He could track Alice alone and come back triumphant. Except…there was no way the dog would leave Taylor and go with him.
Did he need the dog?
Probably not.
Over by Hoyt’s position, much activity. Soldiers running. Grabbing. Hauling. No. Please, no. Ah, shit. The medical team were converging on a central location.
That meant there’d been something in the drop that was going to be administered troop wide.
Damn, damn, double damn. How was he going to get out of being jabbed without looking like he was trying to get out of being jabbed?
The army were big on jabs.
Michael was grateful for the military presence. It meant they had grunts to take care of hauling shit from one place to the next. But it didn’t mean he was on board with being the “front line” guinea pig for new anti-virals. They were being shot up with god-knows-what in the name of science.
Way in the darkest reaches of his mind: WhoWhatHow sounded, but he couldn’t connect the dots.
“With me. Let’s go.” Klyon barked. “We’re first up so we can get going.”
Maggie-loo bounded to Emmie’s side, eager to please.
He and Taylor joined them. Less eager.
Michael couldn’t think of a way to excuse himself.
The march to the medical team took them close enough to the strangers for him to take a quick look. No obvious signs of the disease, but no obvious signs that they’d been prepared for life in the woods. They were filthy, tattered, and skinny. Another clutch of people who thought they could bug out but had no idea how to live off the land or take care of themselves when the taps ran dry and the food didn’t come in packages.
With any luck the general would give them a meal and a compass and point them in a westerly direction. They didn’t need any deadweight (more mouths to feed, more bodies to clothe, more square-inches of skin to inspect and keep clear of MELT).
Klyon motioned for them to go on ahead and take a seat next to a member of the medical team.
What a joke, calling this a “medical team.” There were no thermometers or stethoscopes. Directly in front of him was a “nurse,” a kidney bowl, and enough medicine to fell a rhino. She’d been promoted to her new position when one of their real nurses went AWOL. She probably had as much training as he did.
“Any new lesions?” She didn’t look at him. She was all needles and vials and untouched-up roots.
He didn’t remember her name. Jilly? Gina? Jeffries was her last name, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember her first name. Something beginning with G or J. He needed her to be on his side if he was going to have this go his way. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Try that angle.
“Tongue out.” Like everyone else who’d been dragooned into service, she had a job to do and wasn’t pleased about it. What kind of pressure had been brought to bear to get these people to do their jobs was none of Michael’s concern. Neither did he care that she had her orders and was going to get hauled across the coals for not giving him a series of inoculations that he didn’t need; only that he had his own mandate, which was far from complete.
She stared at his tonsils for longer than he thought absolutely necessary. “No lesions. Good.” She checked a box on her form. “Headaches? Nausea? Vomiting? Blood in your stool?” She rattled the list off as if it wasn’t a death sentence. “Fever, night sweats, hallucinations, violence, mania, death?” She laughed, three bullet-like iterations that relayed exhaustion.
“I seem not to be dead, though appearances can be deceiving.”
She sighed. “Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Michael. I have a list of questions that I am obliged to ask. To be honest, I don’t see the point. You’re going to get these shots or be made to leave the team. End of story. So, shall we go at it the hard way or the easy way? Your call.”
Rayton leaned back. “I don’t need boosters. I am fully inoculated.”
“You don’t know what I’m giving you, so how can you know you’re fully inoculated?” The field nurse had dead eyes, a runny nose, and a marked case of halitosis.
“I’ve served in the Middle East, Kazakhstan, Turkey, China…do I need to go on?”
She pulled the cap off the needle. “I’m not about to get reamed by my Sergeant because some jumped-up civilian who didn’t know how to do as he was told got up in my grill and tried to make my life difficult. I don’t care how senior you are or the fact that you don’t think the rules apply to you…”
Michael kept his voice low. “I don’t want to overload my system.”
“You’ve had the quadrivalent meningococcal vaccine containing A, C, Y, and W-135 polysaccharide antigens?” She leaned back and smiled sure she’d gotten it right and was naming the one vaccine he hadn’t had.
But she’d be wrong. He worked fo
r the CIA. He’d had everything that was on her list and more. Except, they’d be testing an antidote to MELT. Shit, that was it. That was definitely what they were testing. That idea had lurked at the back of his mind since he’d read Alice’s journal but it had never come into full focus. He pushed his chair back. There was no way he was going to volunteer to have that coursing through his veins. “I’ve had them all,” he said.
Jeffries looked down at the kidney bowl at her elbow and sighed. “How about a witches brew, guaranteed to make you vomit unicorns and crap sparkles?” She cackled at her own joke.
Rayton didn’t smile. “Tell me what you’re giving me and I’ll tell you if I need it.”
“Sarge?” She threw her voice. “Make the civilians go away. They’re a pain in my…”
Michael had been marching with these people for months. He knew the sergeant to be a decent sort. He’d understand. “I was already immune before we started out. I’ve had three rounds of new shots.” He hadn’t; he’d weaseled his way out of every booster. “I don’t need more. They’ll make me sluggish. You know how it is. We’re all a bit off after we’ve had these. I need all my strength. I’m on the team to find Alice Everlee…”
“Sorry, Rayton. Orders from on high. We’re all getting jabbed, no matter who we are, when we were last in the field, or what the titers would say…” Sergeant Powers paused. “..if titers existed anymore. I’m not sure there’s a place within a 300-mile radius that could run those tests for us.”
“Rayton!” It was a voice he knew. “Rayton! Baxter!”
Michael shot up from the ground, dodged past the line of waiting sheep, and headed for the voice that continued to call his name.
Alice Everlee stomped into view. She looked like he felt with her raccoon eyes and sunken cheeks and hunched shoulders. Her clothes were bloodied, but she like Maggie-loo, gave no indication that she was injured. “They’re coming,” she said. “They’re coming and they’re carrying.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
