“Virgin?”
“Okay, you know what, screw this...”
“Oh, my God, that’s it isn’t it? You’re a virgin! Holy shit, why didn’t you just...”
“Fuck off!”
She blockades me as I turn to storm away, my ego throbbing like a smashed thumb. “Oh, chill out. There’s no need to get all hurt about it, shit. It’s not a big deal.”
“What are you supposed to be, Katia? The community...”
“If you call me a whore, or a slut, or anything else that implies spread legs and easy pickings, I’ll slap the shit out of you!” She holds a finger inches away from my nose.
“Okay, calm down, crazy. I’m just saying, I’ve never seen a girl as forward as you, okay. Usually the guy has got to put some work in.”
“Yeah, well, guys don’t exactly find me easy to talk to.”
“Could be the tattoos and the swords.”
“Well, there you go. All the more reason I have to be forward when I want to get to know someone. Plus, you’re like the first guy remotely close to my age.”
“So it’s a lack of options?”
She throws her head back, puffing her cheeks in frustration. “Holy shit, no. And a lack of confidence is unattractive, just FYI.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying...”
The sound of rapid footsteps interrupts our conversation.
It’s Ruiz.
“Guys, you’ve gotta come see this. Bytes broke through!”
9
“Project what?” Katia asks again, shaking her head.
“Project Lockjaw,” Bytes repeats himself, chomping his teeth together to drive it home.
“You know, Lockjaw, cause of how the bastards bite?” Ruiz acts as if it should be obvious.
“Makes sense to me,” Bethany says.
“So what’s this Project Lockjaw, spill it?” I’m antsy, bouncing up on the balls of my feet.
It’s Christmas morning in hell.
“Tell em’.” Ruiz slaps Bytes on the shoulder, spurring him on.
“Project Lockjaw was a program developed and implemented by DARPA. Essentially a super soldier program.”
“Super soldier program?” Katia is pacing by the balcony door.
“Soldiers that don’t register pain. Inhuman strength. Speed. All of them under the control of a single master. Activated and deactivated by the press of a button.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” I ask. “I don’t see any soldiers out there running around. I see walking corpses. My school wasn’t filled with enlisted men. Jeff Fuller wasn’t a marine; he was a fat asshole with a love for deer stands and a deep dislike for me.”
“Who’s Jeff Fuller?” Katia asks.
“The kid who sat in front of me in school. First one I saw turn. No bite. Just started puking and then he fell out, stopped breathing, and died right there. Next thing I know, the teacher is checking on him and he’s back up, his teeth in her neck.”
“Jesus!” Katia exclaims.
“Yeah, it wasn’t pretty.”
“No bite, you’re sure?” Katia asks.
“Unless he was hiding it and just had a miraculously slow turn time, then yeah, I’m pretty positive.”
“He wasn’t bitten, Timmy is right, it was a flu shot,” Bytes says with a nonchalant confidence. He runs his fingers across the keyboard, the glow of the screens changing from orange to blue. White letters run across the face of his glasses. He stops and rests his chin on the tops of his knuckles “How many of you in this room got the flu shot this year? Raise your hand if you did.”
Bethany and I didn’t get one this year. I know that for sure. Momma didn’t get one either. We’re not anti-vaccine. It’s just something we never got around to. It wasn’t unusual for us to skip two years and then have Momma get it for us on a whim; usually at the drug store when she was picking up a prescription or refilling her vitamin supply.
All of us scan the room searching for a raised hand.
There isn’t one.
Bytes nods, as if he’d anticipated such a response. “Well, there you have it.”
“You’re saying the flu vaccine did this?” I laugh and shake my head. “Come on, man, what does the drive say?”
“You’re close. And it’s not like the government hasn’t tested weapons on civilians before. Do any of you recall the early 1950’s?” Blank stares. “I figured as much. The CIA hauled their happy asses into the low income neighborhoods of St. Louis. Now, these were mostly black neighborhoods, a majority of the population was children under the age of 12. They set up these giant motorized blowers on top of the high rises and told the residents that they were experimenting with a smokescreen device in order to protect them from Russian attacks.” Bytes pulls a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, pops one out and lights up, blowing the smoke towards the ceiling. “If you see guys in suits in your neighborhood setting up some shit like that today, it’s gonna crash harder than Icarus, folks are wise about it now, they don’t trust the government. But, back then, you gotta remember, Cold War, there was a lot of paranoia about the Russians and a potential attack on America, so, people just went with it. But, little did they know that the good old boys at the CIA were there to test weapons on them. Hundreds of pounds of finely powdered zinc cadmium sulfide and radioactive material were blown out over that population.”
“Bullshit.” I dismiss him with a wave of my hand and turn towards Katia. She’s standing with her hips cocked, her hands wrapped across the hilts of her swords. She looks intrigued. “What, seriously, you believe that? Flu shots?”
She shrugs.
“You don’t? Same people that have been hunting you and your sister. You don’t believe they’re capable testing weapons on their own people?” Ruiz seems offended by my skepticism.
“It’s the General. He’s hunting us, his men are hunting us. He’s the only one I’ve seen do shit. Excuse me if I’m skeptical.”
Ruiz smirks. “Are you stupid? Where do you think these assholes get their funding? Their hardware? They aren’t running yard sales and selling cookies door to door.”
“The men hunting you are petals. They are a product of a very deep root system. Project Lockjaw goes all the way to the tiptop. They aren’t out here chasing you down of their own volition.” Bytes turns back and forth in his chair, relaxed, hands locked behind his head.
I can’t really argue with their logic. “Okay, so flu shots, how do they play in?”
“They were the delivery system for the nanorobots.”
“Nanorobots?”
“Yes, they are 1.5 nanometers across, invisible to the human eye. They weren’t in every single vaccine, but, they were in enough of them. The robots attach to the brain stem.” Bytes turns one of the computer screens towards me. It’s a stock image of a skull, with the spinal column attached, set against a green and black background. Bytes points to the bottom of the skull and clicks the mouse button once. A herd of, what appear to be, tiny metallic spiders begin latching onto where the spine and the skull connect. “You get the general idea.”
“Whoa, that’s pretty gross looking,” Bethany says.
“You see, Bytes, this is why I stay away from you techno geeks, shit like this,” Katia says.
He pouts. “C’mon, baby, we’re not all bad.” He reaches a hand towards her and pats his lap with the other.
“I’ll cut it off.” Katia pulls one of the swords half way from its sheath.
Bytes laughs and turns the screen away from us. “It looks like, according to the information on this drive, that this was supposed to give whoever was in charge control over the hosts body. They would hit the button and the robots attached to the brain stem would go live. And just like that, worldwide zombie army.”
“They were supposed to have control over each individual person?” I ask.
“No, it was a hive mind scenario. One switch to turn all of them on. The orders were pre -programmed. Some
thing went wrong. It was just supposed to be a test run, you know, to see if it worked, before they started using it on actual soldiers. They were going to turn them on, have everyone dance in circles, or something, and then flip them off again; no one would ever be the wiser. The hosts didn’t adapt well, obviously. Even worse, we know that the hosts can spread their nanomachines to others through the bites. The nanomachines are self-replicating. A nasty feature, but, genius nonetheless, for when you want to turn your enemy into your friend. What a way to build an army, huh?”
This connects something sitting on the back burner of my mind. Something I’ve heard before. Ruiz and Bytes can see my wheels spinning. They wait patiently while I snap my fingers and tap my heels. “Okay, yeah, Bo said something like that.”
“Bo?”
“The name isn’t important. He was a guy that saved our ass. Militia type with different chapters spread out across the country. Anyway, he said that when all this stuff hit the fan that he got reports from each chapter, at pretty much the exact same time, letting him know it was going down. Like a switch had been flipped.”
Bytes shrugs. “Yep, that’s pretty much what it says they did.”
“So, if they turned it on, they can turn it off, right?” Katia asks.
Bytes shakes his head. “They’d have done that. They lost control, obviously. It’s beyond them now. They’re just trying to save whatever ass they’ve got left. Hence, why they’re after this drive and what’s on it.”
I walk around the table to Ruiz, talking low so Bethany can’t hear me. “Okay, so we can use this.”
“Use it for what?”
“To get Momma back, this is a bargaining chip, a big one. They don’t want this shit getting out.”
Ruiz barely turns his head to address me; he speaks from one corner of his mouth. “Nah, kid, this is much bigger than that. You don’t understand what’s going on. This thing is a flak jacket for us. Let’s just finish up here and I’ll...”
“What does that mean, a flak jacket?”
“It means we can use it to make the guys at the tiptop think twice. If they know we have this, if they know that we can release this information, then they’re likely to think twice before making a move.”
“Release it where? Where are you going to release it, Ruiz? You gonna fold up a paper airplane and send it out on the wind?”
Ruiz turns to face me, each foot falling heavy against the floor. “Bytes is working on something to get us back online. Something to get us communicating with the great beyond.” Ruiz locks his thumbs together and wags his fingers in front of my nose like a butterfly.
“Do you know what’ll happen if you do that?”
“I know exactly what’ll happen.”
“You’ll start World War Three!” Volume control isn’t a priority for me anymore.
“This is World War Three, manito! You’re already in it.”
“The rest of the world will pound us into dust. They’ll tear this entire fucking country down to its foundation. Is that what you want? For us? For your sister? We should be trying to rebuild, not cause more destruction.”
He steps in closer, flexing his jaw. “How long have we been pieces of shit on the boot heels of these assholes? We were puppets on strings. They maneuvered us however they saw fit. Digging into our emails. Our phone calls. Disarming us. Sending our brothers to die for their petty bullshit. Now...now they use us as lab rats. You think all of that should go unanswered? That we should just let them sweep it under the rug?”
I can sense the tension in his voice. “Ruiz, that’s not what I’m saying, but governments are going to rise. They’re going to fall. Yeah, you may crush them. But, we’ll get crushed right along with em’. When all the dust is settled, when we’re in the ground, another government, just as shitty and broken as this one, will rise to take its place. It’ll be for nothing. Instead, how about we rise? We can play this thing to our advantage.”
He jabs a finger into my shoulder. “You’re blind on this one, kid. You don’t know what’s going on. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Just step back...”
“Dealing with the General is advantageous for all of us. I’m not even saying to give him the drive; we can lure him out with it though. Get the bastard out in the open, and strike.”
“Give the drive away? You want to give this information away as some bargaining chip? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“No good can come from what you’re planning to do.”
“In your opinion. I’m thinking big picture and you’ve got your head up your ass.”
“So what, we’re all going to go down because you’ve got some bullshit hard-on for the government? You’re going to kill all of these people? Your own sister? You’re pathetic.” I shove him, not hard, just enough to make my point.
He shoves me back, hard, with both hands, right in the center of my chest, and then he draws his gun. I stumble and catch myself against the kitchen counter. “What was that, you punk ass bitch? Say it again, didn’t quite hear you?”
I pull the pistol from my waistband and level it at his chest in a two handed grip. “That’s the last time you’re pulling a gun on me.”
“Oh, you’ve got that right, because I’m about to blow your goddamn head off.”
We’re standing, muzzle to muzzle, fingers hovering over the triggers.
“Guys, hey now, not cool. No loaded weapons around the computers.” Bytes chuckles with nervous energy, doing his best to diffuse the situation.
Katia and Bethany move towards us, cautiously.
“Ruiz, chill okay, he didn’t mean anything by it. Put the gun away. Our enemy is out there.” Katia is beside him now. She wraps one hand across his wrists, attempting to pull his hands down.
“Tim, not here, okay? Think about Momma.”
I lock eyes with Ruiz. Seconds pass. We reach silent agreement and slowly begin to lower our guns.
“I want both of you out of here by tomorrow,” Ruiz growls, dropping his pistol back into its holster.
“That’s fine. You can run this deal off the cliff by yourself.” I storm past Bethany and out the door.
***
“Timmy, wait.” Katia’s feet slap against the pavement as she races to catch up. “Hang on a second.”
By the time I relent, we’re halfway around the pond and she’s breathing heavy.
“Ruiz, he didn’t...”
“Yeah, I know, he’s just passionate. Save it, Katia. I don’t have time for the excuses. Your brother is a psychopath. He’s got some circuits loose. And the next time he pulls a fucking gun on me, I’m going to shoot him, so yeah, it’s best that I leave.” She grabs my arms to keep me from turning.
“Don’t...” she lifts her hands and shrinks back, “just listen to me for a second.”
“You’ve got one.”
Katia grips the black gate and stares out over the lake. The water chops against the cement embankment on the back of a breeze that whips her hair around the side of her face. She doesn’t attempt to fix it. “We lost both of our parents. These things...they turned my dad. My dad, he attacked my mom. He turned her too. I didn’t see it, but, Ruiz did. Ruiz is also the one that put them down.” She ducks her head and swipes at her face to try to conceal the tears. “He’s angry, Tim. Can’t you, of all people, understand that?”
I shake my head. “It’s not that I don’t understand it, I understand it, very well. I spend every waking second pissed off, but it’s focused. I go, I kill the General, and I get Momma back. I’m not going to pollute the rest of humanity because I’m pissed off. Your brother, he’s holding what equates to a nuclear trigger. What gives him the right to make that decision for the rest of us? We’ve all lost someone. He’s not looking to gather what little we have left and rise up out of the ashes. He’s going to go and destroy the only chance we’ve got at a future because he’s pissed off.”
“Timmy, if you’d just let him explain...”
“No,
that’s the problem, there’s nothing he can say to make that okay with me. Your second is up.” I start walking again, hands in my pockets, eyes watering up against the breeze blowing in.
She runs up behind me again, grabbing at my arms, trying to turn me. “Damn it, will you wait, please?”
I windmill around, knocking her hands away. “Just stop it already. Stop following me. Just let me go.”
She does.
10
Bethany and I really didn’t have much packing to do.
We’d never unpacked.
We decided to rest up for the night and leave at daybreak.
Fresh.
Our minds and bodies rested.
Well, at least one of our minds. One of our bodies.
Sleep isn’t going to find me tonight. The thoughts are speeding through my head so fast I’m lucky if I can catch a glimpse of the tail lights.
Ruiz and his insane plan to hold the country hostage.
Katia and me by the lake. Her trying to get me to stay.
Grabbing for me.
Pleading with me.
Maybe there was something there after all.
Or, maybe, she knows her brother is as unstable as a glass house in a gravel yard and she wants someone with a level head around to balance out the equation.
He won’t do it.
He’s a crazy sonofabitch with a gasoline temper, but he won’t push the button. He loves his sister too much.
The way I love mine.
I hope.
Either way, it won’t be my problem come sunrise.
Bethany doesn’t like the idea of us leaving. She wants to stay.
She likes the security.
She’s starting to like Katia.
She told me so.
But, she understands. She trusts me. She’ll follow me into hell. We’ll knock on the front door. We’ll get Momma back on our own, just like we’d planned to do before. Before the rescue. Before the hot meals and the security.
We don’t need them.
There’s an explosion outside. The building shakes. Windows shatter.
The rapid firecracker pop of automatic gunfire fills the air.
The Rabid: Rise Page 6
