by Addison Gunn
Thankfully, the wasps were scarce in the building. Miller yanked down his mask and huffed his way up four flights, his lungs burning. When he reached the landing— gasping, choking—he had no choice but to grip the wall and wait for the dizziness to clear.
Adrenaline could only take a person so far. He’d been on starvation rations for weeks, and had burned out to the point of collapse. He had no energy left to give. Once the black spots cleared from his vision, Miller found what strength he had and pulled open the door in the stairwell, entering the fourth floor and forcing his eyes to focus.
The hallway was dark. Down the corridor and past several empty offices, Miller rounded the bend and came up to the corner suite. No guards stood at the door.
He twisted the knob and entered Gray’s office, then immediately bent to the side and got to one knee, his rifle raised to his chest.
Those in the room froze. The kids, James and Helen, sat beside the makings of a homemade fireplace, built out of chunks of cement and cinderblock. A make-shift chimney led up and out the side panel of the large window. They blinked at Miller through tired eyes, their faces lighting up at the sight of him.
Gray and his ex-wife were on the other side of the room. Barbara sat up from a pile of blankets that had been tossed over sofa cushions on the floor. She opened her mouth as if so say something, but instead looked to Gray, who sat slumped in his office chair behind his desk, as if he still had a kingdom to rule over.
Gray’s drooped eyes squinted at Miller through the smoky office. “Alex?”
“My god, you look like hell,” someone said in a drawling English accent.
There were two guards in the room. Behind Gray, leaning casually against the wall, stood Doyle and one other—one of Harris’s men. Doyle had his arms crossed over his chest, but the other guard had his rifle in his hands. Neither one of them moved—yet.
For a brief moment, Miller and Doyle only stared at one another. Then the other guard’s face contorted, his mouth opened in abject rage. “It’s Miller!” he cried, raising his rifle to his shoulder
A shot rang out.
Almost every person in the room, including Miller, jolted.
The soldier dropped to his left, gripping his ribs with a bloody palm, aghast. His mouth gaped, “What the—what the…”
Doyle pulled his crossed arms apart and revealed a handgun in his right hand.
He reached down, disarmed the wounded soldier, then nodded at Miller. “I’ve been waiting for you, boss.”
Miller lowered the tip of his rifle and got to his feet. “Is that right?”
“And by the way, the Tartarus Protocol was bollocks.”
“So I heard.”
“Thank God, Miller,” Gray huffed, standing from his desk with effort. “Have you taken control of the compound?”
Miller balked for a moment, then shook his head. “No one has control of the compound, sir. I’m here to evacuate you.”
“But…”
“What’s the plan?” Doyle asked, crossing the room and helping James and Helen to their feet.
Helen gave Miller a look beyond her fourteen years. “I knew you’d come for us.”
James eyed Miller’s bloody arm and frowned. “You’re hit.”
“Just a scratch.” He shook the boy’s hand, working hard to hide his grimace, and turned his attention back to Doyle. “Take them all to the ships. Du Trieux, Morland, Lewis, and Hsiung are evacuating the survivors. Launch as soon as they’re aboard.”
“But what about the compound?” Gray asked.
Miller felt something inside him break. Heat flooded his face. “Staying here was a mistake,” he said. Gray opened his mouth to protest but Miller put up his hand, stopping him mid-breath. “We should have left the moment the ships arrived. The super-wasp hasn’t stopped the parasite from spreading. On the contrary, it’s done nothing but make it worse, no matter what Harris intended. And he’s turned the company into a twisted dystopian monster. Breeding programs, Gray? What the fuck?”
“We could rebuild…” Gray offered. “Surely there are enough survivors. We have power, water… The infrastructure of the compound is still sound. Isn’t it?”
Miller gritted his teeth. “Look out the window. What survivors? There are hardly any. And those promises Harris made about the refugees getting treatment after they were exposed to the super-wasps? Total horseshit. The wasps are eating people’s brains inside out. You should see them, Gray. There’s no treatment for that. They’re fucking zombies.”
“For now,” Gray admitted. “But if we just did some research, surely we could come up with something…”
“You want to experiment?” Miller burst out, losing all patience. “On people?”
Barbara’s face twisted in pained revulsion. “Oh, Gray.”
“You’d be no better than Harris!” Miller shouted.
Gray’s face went pale. He gripped the back of his office chair, his eyes rimmed in red. “All that work that went into securing this position, our survival. And you just want to run away? To where? There’s nowhere left to go!” He squared his bony shoulders. “I’m still the leader of this facility…”
“The hell you are,” Miller barked. Coming forward, he pointed a sharp finger at Gray’s chest. “I hate to break it to you, but nobody runs anything in New York City. The wasps rule. We’ve lost. Your ‘leadership,’” he sneered, “is a fucking joke.”
“Hey, I’ve made mistakes, but we can’t just—”
Miller threw his hands in the air, all patience lost. “Admitting you’ve fucked up doesn’t mean you can take us further down the wrong path.” He inhaled, making a concerted effort to calm himself. His blood was pumping so hard, he could hear his heartbeat echoing in his ears. “We disembark within the hour with whomever we can save,” he told Gray. “End of story.”
Stunned into silence, Gray blinked at him, his face pale.
Miller almost felt sorry for him. He’d been a good leader, once. He’d believed he was doing the right thing—even if he had been completely wrong. Somehow, somewhere along the way, Gray had gotten lost and managed to pull the whole of New York’s humanity with him. It was a hefty price. Ultimately, he’d been outsmarted by Harris. But a good leader relied on those he led as much as they relied on him, and it was time for Gray to trust Miller. It was something he’d had to learn himself from hard-won experience. Miller couldn’t be a leader without du Trieux, Doyle, Hsiung, and Morland. And Gray couldn’t be a good leader without him.
He saved the speech, though. It wasn’t the time or place.
Instead, he raised his rifle back to his chest and turned to Doyle and the others. “Gather your things. Stay clear of the Infected, and get to the ship. Now!”
He turned to leave. With one hand on the door, Doyle shouted after him. “Where are you going?”
He shot his words over his shoulder while he exited Gray’s office. “I’ve got one last thing to do.”
6
MILLER BOUNDED UP the cove’s stairwell, his lungs once again protesting the effort. Blood from his grazed arm seeped into the fabric of his uniform, staining the cloth a deeper shade of black and warming his skin as his blood pressure rose. With every step the pain pulsed down to his fingertips.
It may be more than a graze, but it was nothing compared to the ache that throbbed in his head the moment he’d left Gray’s office.
The realization of what he was about to do had settled into his bones, weighing his feet. His legs slowed; flashes of light forced his eyes closed.
Good God, how had it come to this?
He knew what he had to do. It was planned. Everything they had worked for in the last several weeks led to this moment. He couldn’t afford to have his body give out just when he was nearly there.
Miller pushed his palm against the wall of the stairwell, his knees shaking. His backpack felt a thousand pounds, pulling him into the hollows of the earth and threatening to blow his psyche to pieces.
All the mis
takes that Gray had made, and Miller could very well be making the biggest misstep in all of history.
He was a nobody—a burnt-out bodyguard who’d gotten caught up in the most horrendous fight of human history; how could he, of all people, make a decision that would affect the lives of everyone on the planet?
Miller opened his eyes and forced one foot in front of the other. Up the stairs he continued, his body protesting with each move.
There was no time for regret now. The path had been laid.
When he reached the sixth floor, Miller entered the hallway and chanced a look out the windows, his mind whirling.
Below, in the pandemonium of the compound, the Northwind and Cobalt troops—and strangely enough, some of Harris’s troops, too—were leading a small pack of survivors from a warehouse and hacking through the Exiles and Infected toward the docks, where the Tevatnoa sat, waiting.
The massive ship looked rusted and decrepit at the docks, but there was a flurry of activity on deck. Half the crew pulled up the cables mooring the ship, while the other half detached the power lines connecting it to the power station farther down the dock.
Satisfied, Miller continued down the hall toward the master suite. He rounded the bend and spotted two guards at the door. They glared at him in shock, looking anxious and sweaty.
His hesitation only lasted a second. Raising his rifle, Miller opened fire, hitting both stunned men in the face. The rounds cut clean through them, throwing them against the wall with a splatter of blood that sprayed across the cracked paint.
Bile burned the back of Miller’s throat, but he swallowed it down, adjusted the pack on his back, and stepped over the bodies toward the door. Inside the office he heard shouting.
“Who authorized you to start the chopper’s launch sequence? We are not evacuating. Not after all we’ve done to secure this compound!”
“Sir, you must go—we’re under siege!”
“Seal off the gates. No one gets in or out.”
“Sir…!”
“Don’t give me excuses!”
Miller had heard enough. Pushing through the door, he immediately cut to one side and squeezed off several rounds, hitting one unsuspecting soldier in the back and the other in the side.
There were at least three more guards. Miller dodged a shot by diving into a side roll, his heavy backpack off-setting his balance. He landed with a flop, then scrambled up, coming up behind a padded chair and unconsciously grabbing at his throbbing arm. The pain blinded him for only a moment, but it was enough time for the guards to shoot off several more rounds. One of the bullets pierced the stuffed chair and hit the wall behind him. Miller shook off the discomfort, raised his M27 and blindly shot a few more rounds, taking down another guard.
Two left.
Bob Harris stood behind his desk, looking clean, well-fed, and aghast that anyone would have the gall to enter his office and shoot at him. “What the hell are you waiting for?” he bellowed. “Take him out!”
The remaining guards opened up, ripping the area around Miller to shreds with a dozen rounds each. Stuffing from the chair exploded out the back a few more times. Miller felt a round hit the ground at his feet and tucked his leg in. When there was a break in the bullets, he came around to survey the scene.
The two guards stood on either side of Harris’s desk, the man himself between them.
“Ha!” Harris burst. “Not so tough now, are you Miller?”
Shaking his head, Miller grabbed at his vest, pulling out a hand grenade. Biting the pin from the top, he rolled it across the floor, between one of the guard’s feet.
“Grenade!”
As the guard bent over, using his body as a shield, Harris and the other soldier dove for cover.
The explosion was loud, making Miller’s ears ring, but it was mostly contained by the guard’s sacrifice. Using the distraction, Miller stood from behind the shredded chair and took out the other guard before he could regain his footing.
Harris made a mad dash for the door; Miller took aim and shot out his kneecaps.
The old security head bellowed in agony as he hit the floor, his chin striking hard against the ground. He rolled onto his back, gripping his smashed knees with shaking, stubby fingers. “Miller—you son of a bitch.”
“Sticks and stones, Bob,” Miller said.
“What the hell have you done? You’ve ruined everything—condemned us all, all of humanity.”
“I’ve condemned us?” Miller wrenched Harris to his feet, then propped up the battered office chair and sat Harris down in it. “I’m only here to finish what you started.” Pulling a length of rope from his vest pocket, Miller tied Harris to the chair, binding him around his arms, across the chest and ankles. “If anyone threw our humanity away, it was you.”
“Miller, please. You have to listen to me. Don’t do this.”
Miller tightened the last of the rope, then bent to remove his backpack. “This is your mission, Bob. It’s Operation Atlas Lion—just like you wanted.” He pulled open the pack’s zipper and spoke through clenched teeth. “Right outside your window, the compound is swarming with every parasite-ridden creature within a ten mile radius.” Opening the pack, Miller pulled the surface-to-air nuke from the bag, and with both hands level, brought it over to Harris.
The man’s eyes widened in horror. Miller felt sick at the satisfaction that expression brought him.
“We’re going to cleanse New York City of the Exiles,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind, but I improvised a little.”
Gingerly, Miller slid the nuke between Harris’s knees and used the rope to anchor it to his thighs. Harris struggled, twisting his hips in an attempt to escape, but between his shattered knees and the ropes binding him to the chair, there was no place for him to go.
Bending down, Miller activated the control panel on the side of the missile, set the timer for a half hour, then bent upright.
Harris’s eyes had filled with tears. “You don’t have to do this,” he blubbered. “Just give the wasps time to spread NAPA-33. If we can maintain control of the compound, I know we can beat this.”
Miller shook his head, not bothering to reply. He dug into his vest and tossed a handful of pheromone tea bags into Harris’s lap.
“What would be worse, do you think? The terror-jaws finding you first, or the timer running out? Good-bye, Harris.” Turning on his heel, Miller slung the strap of his M27 on his good arm, and crossed the office.
“Miller! You can’t leave me here like this. Miller! This won’t solve anything. We can still save New York. You just have to listen to me. Miller! Miller, get back here!”
But he was already out the door.
7
NEW YORK CITY was bleak and dark and much reduced. With power lost at the compound, there were no lights visible anywhere on either side of the East River.
Miller gripped the top of the captain’s chair on the bridge of the Tevatnoa with white knuckles, his eyes never leaving the darkened city, awaiting the execution.
As the burden settled into his chest like a fungal infection, he sighed and felt the weight of a hand on his shoulder.
L. Gray Matheson patted his bandage, then stopped when Miller winced.
Aboard the Tevatnoa’s bridge, Miller, Gray, and Lewis stood silently, watching the Astoria Peninsula. The East River was running fast, whipping them down past Roosevelt Island. It would take only a few minutes to reach the open water of the Atlantic Ocean.
They couldn’t see the carnage at the compound from that distance, but they knew. Someplace on that pocket of land, the last of New York’s humans were fighting against a horde they couldn’t possibly beat.
“How long?” Gray asked.
Miller checked the timer on his watch. “Three minutes.”
Their eyes turned back to the peninsula.
Lewis cleared his throat. “You could say that Harris is about to get what he wanted.”
Miller didn’t speak. He’d thought the same thing, but his
throat felt tight.
“I think when we enter Boston, that’s the story we go with,” Gray said.
His tone was matter-of-fact. Miller looked up in surprise.
“Story?”
Gray raised his eyebrows and gave a half-hearted shrug. “Don’t be so eager to take the fall for this. You want to be known throughout all of history as the man who nuked New York City?”
“But I am the man who nuked New York City.”
“No, Harris is. And it’s not as if he’s going to be around to deny that story, is he?”
“Sir, I’m not sure…”
“Alex,” Gray said, looking a little like his old, controlled self. “Remember me saying that a good soldier needs something of a sociopath in him?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that can mean doing the wrong things for the right reasons,” Gray continued. “It can also mean shifting blame onto someone too dead to object.”
Miller shot Gray a quick look, then turned his attention back to the skyline. Maybe he was right. Maybe not. Honestly, it was hard to think straight. Exhaustion and the depletion of adrenaline was making Miller feel sluggish.
Lewis grunted. “He’s right, son. It’ll stay between us. No one else need know.”
But Miller would know. It was a weight he was unsure he could forget he was carrying. But he nodded slowly. “If you two think that’s what best.”
Gray frowned. “We do.”
The bomb went off.
From their distance, there was no sound, but clearly visible from the ship’s bridge, there was a flash of light. A large cloud of dust puffed into the air from where the compound had once stood. The plume darkened the sky, covering the stars in all directions, hanging on the horizon like a black curtain.
Lewis’s shoulders slumped. “That’s it, then.” He turned away from the window, his eyes passing over Miller’s stricken face toward Gray. “What comes next?”
Gray shook his head slowly, his mouth thin and compressed. “I suppose we adapt.”
Lewis snorted. “And how do you propose we do that?”
