The Last Mayor Box Set

by Michael John Grist

  On a good day they required no oversight from him. All the plates were in the air and spinning, the globe turned without major incident, only occasionally requiring the lightest nudge. It wasn't vision, it was systems management, and it fulfilled him more than anything he'd done before.

  Now his plates were in chaos, and he projected startling shifts in the future. The data coming in was limited, but the implications were stark. The Logchain's greatest finding, the T4, had expressed itself onto reality, to destructive effect. An enemy out there had tried to tear not only the world order down, but the existing genetic basis for the human race, and there was no way yet to tell how successful they'd been.

  Nothing was going to be the same.

  Thirty minutes passed while he sent out a flurry of commands, reshaping the SEAL. Preparations had to be made, assets had to be placed, heads had to roll, investigations had to be stepped up, and traps had to be set. Everything that he could do, he did, minute-by-minute driving splinters into an international system he'd worked for six years to preserve.

  When that was done he brought up his sixteen wall screens and called on a Council of the SEAL.

  6. HANGAR 13

  Hours before a hot Istanbul dawn, after catching snatches of a fitful sleep, Anna limped through the camp of her enemy. She was weak still, barely able to carry her own weight on trembling legs, but she couldn't rest any longer.

  Hundreds of people lay on the ground around her; feverish, sweating, shaking, silvered by moonlight like breakers on an ocean of troubled waves. She moved through them carefully, picking a path over the weed-sprung asphalt between their tangled limbs, counting the dead as she went.

  A third, perhaps. Of three thousand that was a thousand people gone, killed by Amo.

  The air was warm and wet, carrying the scent of flowers riding atop the sour pall of electrical smoke and sweat. The grumble and groan of bodies rose like morning dew evaporating, and she pictured Amo's face again, deep in the bunker so many hours ago.

  The rage in him had knocked her down. Somehow he'd hit her with it, balling it up like a hammer, and she'd gone down helpless. It made her think of Mongolia, the first time she'd seen a demon in that mountain of Ocean bodies, but more powerful. It was a new and confusing thing, and one she felt in herself now, growing like a tiny seedling of rage. It was something in the air too, in the vacuum of the line, something buzzing like a mosquito in her mind.

  A shiver ran through her, and she realized she was standing still like a scarecrow in that ripe field of the dying, with one hand resting protectively on her stomach. That was a terrifying thing, too. A little piece of dead Ravi inside her, sucking nutrition out of her body. A parasite or a cure.

  She looked up, and listened to the quiet on the line. Amo was out there still, far to the north. The buzz in her head felt like a fragment of him, broken off in the fight.

  She blinked, and a van rolled slowly by, along a narrow, winding path to her right, dredged through the spread of bodies. Bloodstains glistened in the bright moonlight. A crew of four attended the van, darting in and out amongst the sleeping masses, ferreting out the sickest and loading them.

  Anna let her gaze sweep to the right, where Inchcombe had set up Command centers in her old treaty-base, now bristling with activity. She could hear their voices raised on the wind, as they worked in makeshift field hospitals, stacked and organized supplies from the Habitat, prepared weaponry and talked into radios.

  She turned left, cutting a zigzagging trail through the bodies, drawn by the signals of her people on the line, clear ahead. Here she stepped over outstretched arms, heads turned gray in death, puddles of curdling vomit.

  Outside Hangar 13 there were five security personnel standing in a line at the entrance, wearing a hodge-podge of black body armor and carrying what weaponry they'd managed to bring up from below; rifles, pistols, a club. In the middle stood Montcliffe, a large and powerful man, who spoke in a low growl as Anna drew near.

  "We're to watch you," he said. "Inchcombe's orders."

  "So watch," Anna answered, not breaking stride.

  Montcliffe shifted his grip on his rifle, but didn't raise it any higher. "Try anything and you're dead," he said as she passed by.

  Anna didn't bother to respond, peering into the darkness as her eyes adjusted. There were pale, organic shapes in the blackness, like bleached slugs, but something was wrong. She felt it on the line before she saw it, a confusion more than a signal. Ten yards in she stopped as she realized what she was seeing.

  Peters hung by the arms from a propeller, stripped naked, beaten and barely breathing. Sulman was slumped in a chair, breathing bloody bubbles. Macy was strapped to a crate and sobbing, Jonathon was stretched between two planes, barely breathing.

  A rush of cold anger welled up and surprised her, despite her exhaustion. She turned back to Montcliffe, who had tracked her several steps in.

  "What have you done?" she demanded. "Inchcombe gave orders."

  "For you," he said blankly. "Not them. They resisted."

  He was enjoying this, she could feel it rising off him. He wanted more.

  "Are you going to resist?"

  The buzzing in her head was getting stronger, and she realized she was feeling not only the presence of her people, but also more. Their pain. It stung her like a phantom limb, written over their locations in her head like a beeping GPS signal. That had never happened before, but now it came to her roughly; a jumbled taste of what Peters was feeling, what Macy was feeling, rising up in a fog of hurt and humiliation, tuning into her through the mosquito buzz in her mind. It made her head pulse with rage.

  "So you stripped them?" she asked. "You beat them. You humiliated them for resisting? They were helping your people! We all were."

  Montcliffe took a step forward, now raising the barrel of his rifle to point dead at her face. "Look around you, Princess," he said. "You're lucky to be alive."

  Anna took a step closer, looking down the barrel. It wasn't her first time. "So are you. I could have let him kill you all. I didn't."

  He didn't like that. He took a step closer still, and Anna saw the glint of wet blood on the haft, and realized he'd been beating them only moments ago. Until the moment they'd seen her walking across the field of the dead, they'd been beating them.

  She looked round at the other four, hard men and women who were fanning out now. They were slightly out of breath; torture had tired them out. The strangely calm thought came that, if she was a different person, in a different place, she might be afraid.

  All she felt now was contempt.

  "Do you honestly think this is going to help?" she asked. "Do you think it'll bring the line back, help you with your shield, achieve anything at all? Those people are my team and I need them to save you! You idiots."

  "So join them," said Montcliffe. "I'll take my chances without your team."

  Anna laughed. "And did they give you much useful information?" The first of the four were behind her now, and she let them. They were really doing this. "Insights on the T4, perhaps? Thoughts on portable shields? Tell me at least you got some tears along with the blood, some apologies?" She was working herself up now. "I'm sure that made you feel better."

  "Not enough," Montcliffe said, and she just wanted to laugh more; that he was angry, that he'd decided to turn that anger on her, that he thought he was doing the right thing to keep his people safe. That he also enjoyed it. "It's never enough with you people."

  He nodded, and a sharp movement came from behind Anna. The trap was sprung.

  She was too drained to fight, and outrage wasn't going to shield her. She imagined the blow landing, a rifle butt to the back of the head, knocking her down and making their point. Probably they'd make the same point multiple times, to ensure she really understood. Maybe they'd make the point so many times there'd be nothing of her or people left to explain it to.

  And who would care? Not Inchcombe, not really, it was tidying up an awkward mess. Montcliffe wouldn
't be here if she'd had the power or inclination to stop him. Not any of the people she'd saved would care. Her death would be invisible and forgotten.

  And that she couldn't accept.

  She hadn't seen the possibility before, but now it appeared as clear as day in her head; the mosquito buzzing madly, waiting to be used. Amo had taught her strange things in her long pursuit, tracking his black storm through the craters of Gap and Brezno, and now there was this.

  Before the blow could land she plucked the buzzing mosquito hard, so it twanged like a thick elastic band inside her skull.

  BBRRAAAAAAANNNGGG

  And the blow coming at the back of her head didn't land. Instead, her enemies simply dropped.

  There was a clatter of weapons and a thudding sigh of bodies. It happened in an instant, and it struck her too, but she didn't drop. A wave washed away from her on the empty line, rippling over dry sand. It burned out quickly, swallowed by the friction of so many bodies on the runway, pouring its effect into them so they one by one gasped and stiffened.

  Anna coughed and lurched a step back. The floor reeled as though she were on the deck of her catamaran on a rocking ocean, shifting fluidly underfoot. The world inside her head wobbled as reality bent back to normal.

  What the hell?

  She rubbed her eyes and bowed over until things stabilized, then looked up and saw the five soldiers lying around her, struggling to rise. Montcliffe was on his hands and knees, fumbling for his rifle, his eyes blazing.

  Anna swayed in and took his weapon from him. The sky wobbled like a funhouse mirror and she almost fell, but leaned on the rifle like a crutch. It was tacky with blood.

  "Up," she said, out of breath herself. "Up and go. Go!"

  He met her order with a gaze of naked hate. He didn't understand, but this only confirmed what he'd already known. But he wasn't a fool either. This was something new, and he didn't know how to fight it. He rose up and lurched sideways, like a drunk. He didn't wait for the others, who followed moments later. Two of them left their rifles, but Anna didn't collect them. She didn't need to.

  Instead she turned inward. The mystery of this new power could wait. Shaking, she strode into the darkness of the hangar, where her people lay naked, bloody and bound.

  * * *

  Peters was strung amateurishly by the wrists, barely holding up his own weight. In the darkness it was hard to see the extent of his injuries, but the pain rising off him only grew stronger as she tuned in to it.

  "Easy," he whispered, as she cut his bonds and guided him down to lie on the dusty hangar floor. "Anna. Go easy."

  He had a clotted wound on his shoulder from where they'd shot at him, and impact bruises all over his torso and thighs. She had no blanket, and had to lie him down on the bare concrete. Tears sprang in her eyes. "I'll be back," she said, clutching his thin shoulder. "I'll help."

  "Find Jake," Peters mumbled, laying his head down and trembling. "He needs..."

  "Jake?" Anna asked, shaking his shoulder gently, but Peters drifted into unconsciousness.

  Jake. She'd thought he was dead too, lost in the helicopter attack north of Bordeaux, but if he was alive, if he was here…

  She sped on. Here was Macy, bent over her crate and barely conscious. Anna only hoped they hadn't raped her. Once untied she curled into a chilly ball radiating hurt. Nearby was Jonathan, laid on the floor and stretched between two sets of landing gear with taut ropes. She cut him free and he started crawling toward Macy, exuding a new feeling beyond the pain, perhaps love, perhaps the urge to protect.

  "Where's Jake?" she asked him, but he only shook his head and crawled.

  She found Sulman slumped in his chair, his arms tied to the rests, soaked with sweat and blood, his mouth covered with silver duct tape. A baseball bat lay at his feet.

  "They took Jake," he mumbled through swollen lips, after she tore the tape away. "There."

  Anna spun to the depths of the hangar, where the moonlight didn't reach, and felt them in the shadows on the empty line; two balls of the deepest, rawest hurt. One of them was Jake.

  She ran, stumbling off a wooden table in the dark, thumping her shoulder on a heavy hanging hook, until behind a stack of large crates she heard a mumbling, and saw two shapes in the darkness, one laid on the floor and one tied to a crate. She ran full pelt through the dark, whipped by the pain.

  "Don't," called the figure at the crates as she came on. "Don't touch him!"

  It was Lucas, and Anna turned to him. In the deep dark he was barely visible, but the feel of him on the empty line was familiar; unique, cured, not like anyone else. The slumped shape of Jake felt the same, which puzzled her. Had he taken the cure?

  She halted between them, uncertain what to do. "What's happened?"

  "He has Lyell's," Lucas said, each word coming with a wet grunt of effort. "No skin left. You can't touch him. You'll only-"

  Anna whirled to the lump of Jake, where he lay huddled on the floor, now making a high-pitched whine. He was an inferno of pain.

  Lyell's? Anna thought back to her skinless man in the Alps, wearing his thick wet white pads, serving as a second skin. That was Lyell's, but that wasn't possible, not here, not to Jake…

  "What did they, I mean-"

  "They infected him to punish me, to make me work for them." Lucas stopped to spit blood. "Now they pulled his wrappings off. It's agony, Anna. Get me up. We'll go down. We need to get more." He tried to stand but sagged, even when Anna moved to help him. "I can't…" he started to cry. "Anna, they pulled him to pieces."

  Anna stood for a second, torn and terrified. The blare of Jake's pain was interrupting her thinking. She couldn't process all the changes, coming so fast; Jake was alive, Jake had the cure, Jake didn't have any skin left. The urgency of his pain cut right into her brain.

  No skin?

  "Help him, Anna," Lucas said pathetically. He tried to push himself to his feet again, but now collapsed forward, striking his forehead hard. Fresh tears of helplessness welled in his eyes, while the horror held her fast. It was too much.

  Then she was halfway back through the darkness of the hangar, forgetting how drained she was, because it didn't matter anymore. The mosquito buzz filled her body, making her strong. Her lungs didn't catch on every breath, her stride was no longer weak and staggered, but bold and intent.

  She burst from the dark hell of the hangar and sprinted across the open runway, bodies parting sideways like the Red Sea as she sped toward the Command buildings, driven by the buzz of the mosquito within. She flew past the bunker's hangar entrance where the bodies were thickest, her feet striking off shoulders and thighs but none stopping her.

  In moments she raced into the electric light around the field hospital outside Hangar 11, where new faces looked up at her in confusion and fear. They didn't know her. She looked around desperately, seeking someone to help.

  Many were tending to wounds already, knelt by bodies on white sheets, applying dressings, setting up drips, administering medicines. In their midst, on his knees and pausing in the act of mid-vomit, she saw the leader of the five who'd beaten her people, Montcliffe, staring at her with surprise on his face.

  "She's here," he said, reaching for his gun. "Here!"

  Anna let the fizz of her rage swell out and wash over him and them all. This was what Amo had done, and now she could do it too. They'd hurt her, they'd hurt her people, and this was the right thing to do.

  But the buzz was weak, no stronger than a stiff breeze, knocking no one but Anna herself down, not strong enough to do any more than make the sick moan as it passed. On her knees before the man who'd done it, she wavered and remembered about Jake. Montcliffe stared at her, terrified and confused, not knowing what would happen next.

  She held up one hand, pointed her fingers at his forehead as if they were the barrel of a gun, and forced words up through her tightening throat. "Get doctors. Supplies. Do it right now."

  Montcliffe's jaw dropped. He looked around as if somebody might
save him. "I don't-"

  Anna stabbed her fingers forward, poking him sharply in the forehead. "Do it. Now."

  He stared, then started nodding. He kept nodding as he looked around, patting a man nearby on the hip, then the woman who'd been helping him, then two of his own team lying down beside him.

  "Wrappings," Anna said, drifting on a cloud of weariness now, no longer sure who she was speaking to, not sure what she was even seeing or thinking. Was any of this even real? "He has Lyell's. Anesthetic. He's dying."

  Then a new person was there, a woman doctor with a firm voice and a clear sense of command, looking into Anna's eyes, holding her by the cheeks. "How far along is he?"

  Anna stared at her blankly for a moment.

  "The Lyell's, what stage is he?"

  "Far," Anna blurted, and let out a sob. "They skinned him in Hangar 13. He's lying on the floor, only whining."

  The woman nodded, her calm professionalism taking control. "Jaw locked. I've seen it, late stage." She looked at Anna's hand, still frozen in the shape of a gun against Montcliffe's head. "And you can put that away."

  It could have been a comical thing to say, but to Anna there was nothing funny about it. It was surrender, but she didn't think she had the strength left to hold her hand up anyway.

  She let her hand drop, and with it let go of the rage. At once she collapsed in on herself, tumbling to the side.

  "Shit," said the woman, catching Anna. She ran a hand up to her temple. "Dammit, she's on fire." She looked around. "Keller, I need you on this girl stat, she's hyperthermic. Ice and plasma before she bakes herself alive." She ripped off Anna's jacket, shirt, and Anna let her. A trickle of cool crept in, as the woman stood and kept firing off commands, stabbing her finger out at them.

  "Myers and Faircroft, you're with me. We have another Lyell's victim in Hangar 13, get three boxes synthetic tissue, two bags Oxycodone, on me, and go!"