The Death: The Complete Trilogy

by John W. Vance

  Lori perked up hearing this and sat straighter in her chair. “Me?”

  “Once I found out who you were to the chancellor, I knew you were the piece to the puzzle I had been seeking. Do you want your baby to live past birth?” the magistrate asked.

  “How do you know I’m pregnant?”

  “Can the both of you stop asking me how I know things and just figure I know everything. Why is it people never take you at your word?” the magistrate asked rhetorically.

  “You have a vaccine?” Lori asked.

  The magistrate looked at Martin, then back to Lori. “Yes, I have a supply of it.”

  Travis chirped up, “I guess I’m immune.”

  “Don’t be so sure, but you’re fine now. The moment I found out who you were I had one of my people give you the R-59.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes, I knew the military assets were only being given the old temporary shots with monthly boosters. I found out you’d fled around the time you’d need your monthly, so I gave you the R-59.”

  “That’s what those shots were?” Travis asked.

  “One was, the other was an antibiotic. I didn’t want the arm to get infected.”

  Travis rubbed his stub and felt lucky in some ways that he was now vaccinated against the Death. It had been in the back of his mind whether he was truly immune. As the days had ticked down, he stressed, and when he went past, he breathed a sigh of relief and counted himself lucky, but now he knew the truth.

  “I think that’s twice I saved your life,” the magistrate said.

  Travis gave the magistrate a glare but declined to comment.

  “You mentioned Chancellor Horton was doing something else,” Lori said.

  “Yes, let’s get back on track. Chancellor Horton was given a directive by the Order to expand the cleansing. He has implemented that plan and is killing millions more people. The wholesale slaughter of civilians is underway across the continent.”

  “This is what I was telling you I overheard,” Lori blurted out to Travis.

  Travis nodded and said, “I just can’t believe Marines much less soldiers or other military officers would carry out such plans.”

  “Believe it. Because they are, and if anyone refuses to help, they get eliminated immediately. Also, the threat of not giving them their monthly booster is hung over their heads. I know you like to think that all military people are honorable to the last man or woman, but some aren’t. It’s a hard lesson.”

  Travis grimaced.

  “But let me get back on track. Besides everything else that is happening, the chancellor wishes to take total control, and in order to do that he has to kill off the Order. This new virus is incredibly deadlier than the Death, and we have to stop it. If we want a world for that baby to be born in where they have a chance at surviving, I need you two to help me.”

  Lori’s earlier despair over the news shook her, but now she felt a fighting spirit. She had control over this, unlike when the Death was released. She didn’t know if she trusted the magistrate completely, but what were her options right now? She could sit and wait for it to happen, or sit and wait to die at the hands of someone. Regardless, she had to do something, and if this was how she and her baby would die, then she had to do it. Sitting straighter in her chair, she said, “I’m in.”

  “You haven’t heard what he wants you to do,” Travis shot back at her.

  “Does it matter?” Lori asked.

  “She’s right,” the magistrate said, looking smug.

  Travis thought, and Lori was right, did it matter? If everything the magistrate said was true, they would die soon. If you had to die, why not die trying to save the world. How crazy, he thought, did that sound? How strange was it that he could be instrumental in saving the world from further catastrophe? He looked at Lori, who sat pensively waiting for him to answer, and then to the magistrate, who stood with his arms crossed, looking for an answer. “I’m going with her,” Travis insisted.

  “Captain, I need you for something else.”

  “No, I need to go with her, to protect her.”

  “Captain, I appreciate your valor, but it will be in vain. The first step you make in there, you’ll be taken down and ushered off to your death. I need you for something else. I need those skills as a battlefield commander.”

  “The chancellor might kill her. I don’t know,” Travis protested.

  Lori raised her hand to silence Travis. “It’s fine. What am I doing?”

  “No, Lori, you don’t know what the chancellor will do,” Travis said.

  “The magistrate is right. You won’t last a second. I’ll be fine, trust me.”

  “I like hearing how right I am so often,” the magistrate commented.

  “I can’t let her go by herself,” Travis said, still pressing the issue.

  “Travis, you need to listen to him but, more importantly, to me. I don’t want you there,” Lori said.

  This coming from her hit him hard. He recoiled and fell back in his chair, frustrated.

  The magistrate unbuttoned the top breast pocket of his flannel shirt and pulled out a small vial. He placed it on a piece of paper and slid it over for Lori to examine. “This is what you’ll be taking with you.”

  She leaned in to look at it. The vial was the size of a cigarette filter and contained a white powder. “What is it?”

  “That, my dear, came at a high price, but as soon as I knew who you were, I knew there was only one way for you to get the chancellor. A gun is too crude, but let’s be honest, he’ll never let you within a mile of him if you had a weapon of any kind.”

  “Poison, I assume?” she asked.

  “Yes, but something very special. It’s polonium-210. It’s very rare but extremely lethal. It’s guaranteed to kill, no ifs, ands or buts.”

  “How do I give it to him?” she asked.

  “Slip it into a drink or mix it with food. Whatever you do, don’t drink or eat after him.”

  “How soon will it kill him?” Lori asked.

  “This amount, just a day or two. His death will be agonizing and painful. It will come on like he has the flu, so they’ll probably think he has some type of virus like the Death. I’m betting they’ll quarantine him, and by then, he’ll be dead. Upon his death, things will go crazy there. That’s when my sources will come to the surface and extract you out of there, which is also when Mr. Martin here will deliver a nuclear device.”

  “What am I doing?” Travis asked.

  “Captain, you’ll be leading a force of Scraps in an assault from the west. We’ve been sending small unit-sized forces into Denver for weeks now so as not to draw attention. By our count we have about five thousand men and women ready to fight.”

  “Wait a minute, the Scraps, you lead those people?” Lori asked, now suspicious.

  “Yes, they’re good people who want their country back like you and I do,” the magistrate said.

  “They attacked me and my colleagues and killed one of them.”

  “Martin is better suited to talk about the Scraps. He’s one of their leaders,” the magistrate said.

  “Lori, we don’t kill people unless we have to. We’d rather convert people to our cause.”

  “Why attack us?” she declared.

  “You only just arrived and you’re judging us. Have we hanged people? Yes, but we don’t want to. We have a system that people have chosen to live by. You don’t like it, leave, we say to anyone who comes, otherwise live by the covenant. It has restored order for us. The Scraps are good people; that name was given to those fighters by the chancellor. Like the magistrate said, they are men and women like you who want to stop what’s happening to them and restore what they had,” Martin said.

  Lori stewed on what he said.

  “I understand having allegiances with groups or people that aren’t the best in order to achieve what you want,” Travis added.

  “You’re wrong. This isn’t a compromise; these are good people,” Martin challenged
.

  “They killed an innocent and defenseless woman. I saw it,” Lori countered.

  “What was her name?” the magistrate asked.

  “Margaret, I believe, but she went by Maggie. She was in her fifties—”

  “And from California, right?” the magistrate said, cutting her off.

  “How…?”

  “Once again with the how. She lives with us now. In fact, she helped design and work on some of our greenhouses. You see, Lori, we didn’t kill her, we liberated her,” the magistrate said. He had stopped pacing and placed his hands on the table and leaned in.

  “When do you want to start this operation?” Travis asked.

  “Two weeks ago, that’s how far behind I think we are,” Martin answered.

  “He’s right. We need to move fast,” the magistrate added.

  Having moved past her concerns about the Scraps, she decided to get details on her participation. “Can I handle this stuff?” she asked, referencing the polonium-210.

  “Yes, it’s harmless like it is, but if ingested, you’ve got a problem.”

  She picked up the small vial but fumbled it. Her eyes widened when she heard it hit the table. Nervous, she leaned away from it. After a moment she leaned back in to examine it and saw the vial was intact and not cracked or broken.

  “Be careful with that stuff. I meant it when I said it was hard to come by. I had a team of people extract it from Fort Carson Nuclear Power Plant. It’s very rare. That’s all I have.”

  “When do I leave?” Lori asked.

  “Right after this meeting,” the magistrate said, then looked at Martin and nodded.

  Martin stood and left.

  “He’s getting you a vehicle, a map, and a weapon, and we’ll provide a chase car till just outside the first checkpoint. From there you’ll go by yourself. Your cover story should be easy; you’re coming back for your baby. You will plead, beg, cry, do whatever you need to do to get back in his good graces.”

  “Why are you so sure he’ll take me back?” Lori asked.

  “Trust me. He’s put a lot on the line to have you and find you. He wants you back.”

  “What assurances do you have for her safety?” Travis asked.

  “Little, this could be a suicide mission, but if it goes like I think it will, we’ll extract her.”

  “Who’s the source on the inside?” she asked.

  “I can’t tell you,” the magistrate answered.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “If I’m wrong and he suspects something, he’s liable to torture you. I can’t give you my people’s names; it puts them in harm’s way.”

  She nodded; that made sense to her. “Where should I hide this?” she asked.

  The magistrate cocked his head, raised his eyebrow, and said, “They’re probably going to strip-search you. Where do you think you should hide it?”

  “Say no more,” she replied.

  They finished with some minor details and left the silo. On the surface, they were welcomed by a picture-perfect vanilla sky to the west.

  So often in her life before, Lori had taken for granted the natural beauty of the Earth. She, like others now, was starting to notice the small but precious things that life and the world had to offer. She took an extra few seconds to mentally capture the moment before walking to the white sedan they had acquired for her long journey.

  The magistrate walked up and said, “I can’t thank you enough for your willingness to do this on such a short time frame. I have to admit I thought it would take days to convince you. I was wrong about you.”

  “Most people are.”

  He put his hand out and she took it.

  “Be safe. I hope to see you again.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  He walked away and Travis came forward. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “I have to admit, I wouldn’t have been on board with this crazy idea, but when he said something about another virus, I knew he wasn’t lying. Chancellor Horton is a maniac and will do anything. He has to be stopped.”

  “I just wish there was another way.”

  She touched his arm and asked, “How bad is it?”

  “My stock answer usually is, ‘I’ve been through worse.’ This time that doesn’t work.”

  “You’re a good man, Captain Travis Priddy, you really are. You’re strong, sweet and funny. I mean, look at you, making a joke about your amputated hand. Who does that?”

  “Come here,” he said and drew her in close with a strong embrace.

  “I was so scared for you. I wanted to say something. I’m sorry I didn’t,” she whispered as tears formed in her eyes.

  He caressed her hair and whispered back, “You got my message not to say anything.”

  “So I wasn’t seeing things.”

  “Nope,” he replied, embracing her tighter. Her body felt good to him, and for one of the first times he had a strong urge to kiss her.

  As if sensing where his intentions might be going, she pulled away, but not before kissing him on the cheek. She jumped into the car and started it.

  He didn’t move, he just watched. He wanted to stop her and tell her something deeper, more profound, but he just didn’t know what to say.

  She gripped the steering wheel tightly, put the car into gear and drove away.

  Day 226

  May 14, 2021

  Ten Miles North of Denver International Airport

  Lori didn’t feel alone or scared until the chase car left. Having them just behind her gave her a comfort that, while she knew was temporary, was there nonetheless. She got out of the car and watched them leave; they quickly disappeared as the darkness swallowed them.

  She leaned back against the cold door of the car and looked up into the brilliant star-studded sky. Her mind quickly raced to that night with Travis a couple weeks ago when they were gazing up at these same stars. She smiled when she thought about how he had traced out the constellations with her finger to better show her where they were. The touch of his strong hand was so gentle. Compared to hers, his was like a giant to a child’s. She liked his strong build and solid frame; it was one thing that attracted her to him, but she couldn’t deny that his ability to make her feel safe because of his abilities was an attractive trait. However, this was not the look or man she had gone for in the past. David was not that type, nor was the man she had the affair with. Before she went for a man who was, as she put in her own words, ‘cerebral’; she ignorantly imagined that men like Travis were too into themselves or ignorant. She sometimes found herself at cocktail or dinner parties ridiculing men such as Travis, specifically demeaning his service to the country as shallow. She now regretted those feelings and didn’t recognize the woman she had become. The events that had befallen her over the past seven and half months were so inconceivable that if she could warn herself of the impending doom, she would have laughed herself out of the room or tried to commit herself.

  Lori then realized that she was nothing more than a survivor and had been her entire life. It was natural before for her to want a man who could discuss the finer points of string theory or debate the consequences the Compromise of 1850 had on eventually igniting the Civil War. Then she didn’t need a man who could physically protect her or had the skills to fight. She had lived in a world and a society where everyone for the most part lived by under and by the rule of law. She had taken for granted the men who were protecting her then, but somehow didn’t really understand what they were doing or who they were protecting society from. She had become blinded by the safety net given her, so therefore her innate survival instincts told her it was fine to be with a man for his intellect and his income. Money had replaced muscle, glamour had replaced grit. She was nothing more than surviving in the modern world. She, like many before, had never seen hardship, war, poverty, or crime, so when she would criticize and critique the system, it was from a basis of ignorance. When she really started to process her past life, she came to realize s
he and many others had a normalcy bias, but the hardest thing for her to accept was that she was the ignorant one.

  This epiphany brought David and Eric to the forefront of her mind. She cared for them both, and part of her journey back was to also save them if she could. However, she now could say that she didn’t love David anymore. This was tough for her to admit. She did love him but not in a passionate way. She had known this for a long time but fought it to keep her family together.

  A meteor suddenly streaked across the sky. She closed her eyes and made a wish that her mission would go exactly as planned, that she’d bring David and Eric to safety, and upon her return she’d tell Travis that she had fallen in love with him.

  Large swaths of light splashed across her little car as she crept towards the first checkpoint a few miles outside of the DIA.

  Lori could feel her body tense as she made her way into the single-lane channel. The floodlights were glaring and made it difficult for her to see. Her hands began to hurt from how tight her grip was on the steering wheel. She kept repeating, “Please God,” like a mantra until she reached the guard shack and was stopped by a uniformed man.

  The guard walked over to her window and tapped.

  She rolled it down.

  He turned on a flashlight and shined it on her face and inside the vehicle. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m Lori Roberts; I’m here to turn myself in. I’m a fugitive,” she blurted out.

  The guard flashed his light in her face and stepped back. “Wait one minute,” he said and walked away.

  Moments later three other men came. One of them approached her and asked, “You’re who you say?”

  She looked at this young man and said, “I’m Lori Roberts. I’m a fugitive. I’m here to turn myself in.”

  The man took out a square device that had an eye portal at the end and said, “Put your right eye against here.”

  She leaned over and put her eye on the soft rubber and looked at a small screen inside the device.

  He hit a button; a quick flash was emitted towards her eye. He pulled the device back and tapped on an exterior screen. He must have seen something that validated her statements because he handed the device to the man next to him and ordered, “Get out of the car. Hands where I can see them.”