Pandemic

by Scott Sigler

  “Klimas, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Commander Paulius Klimas. How are you feeling?”

  “Sore.”

  He nodded. “I can imagine. You went through quite an ordeal. I have a message for you from Director Longworth. He sends his best and said that Doctor Cheng is making excellent progress cultivating the yeast. He also said you’re to rest, and that he’ll video conference with you tomorrow. Which you can do right from the Coronado, by the way.”

  Ah, that’s where she was.

  “I don’t remember coming aboard.”

  “You passed out,” he said. “Right after you and Doctor Feely” — Klimas nodded to the unconscious man in the hospital bed — “stabilized Levinson here.”

  Passed out? Blood loss, fatigue, concussive damage, shock, stress … probably a combination of all of it.

  “How is Doctor Feely?”

  “Fine,” Klimas said. “He treated your leg. He was rather insistent about it, actually. He’s been sleeping ever since. Agent Otto is awake though, and he asked about you. Would you like me to bring him in?”

  Why, so he can whisper more lies about how he loves me?

  “Tell him I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t want to see him. How long have I been out?”

  “About sixteen hours, ma’am.”

  That word, ma’am: it made her instantly feel old.

  “Call me Margaret, please. Do I look like a ma’am to you?”

  He shrugged. “Except for the people under my command, every woman is a ma’am and every man is a sir. It’s not my fault I was raised right. And please, call me Paulius.”

  She nodded once. “Very well. Paulius, I want to thank you and your men for rescuing us. It might not mean much, but I owe you. If I can repay your bravery, I will.”

  He laughed lightly.

  “That’s odd,” he said. “I was just about to say the same thing to you.” He nodded toward the unconscious Levinson. “He’d be dead if it wasn’t for the bravery of you and Doctor Feely.”

  Margaret felt suddenly uncomfortable, embarrassed. “Our bravery? You came in like something out of a movie. I’d have drowned without you. Or been shot. Or blown up. Or burned. Take your pick.”

  Klimas shook his head. “When the bullets fly, most people hide behind us. Trust me, I’ve done this before. Margaret, you took a bullet, then — under enemy fire — you and Doctor Feely saved my man’s life. That’s behavior I would have expected from a trained SEAL, not a civilian.”

  She knew a man like Klimas wouldn’t make light of comparing someone to a SEAL. His words seemed to make her more aware of the ache in her thigh.

  “I didn’t get shot,” she said. “Well, I did, but … are you a Monty Python fan?”

  Klimas smiled. “ ’Tis just a flesh wound?”

  She nodded.

  “You got shot,” he said. “End of story.”

  He grew serious, leaned forward just a bit. His eyes carried a certain coldness. Commander Paulius Klimas was polite, sure, but he was still trained to take life whenever ordered.

  “You saved one of ours,” he said. “If you need us, we’ll be there.”

  His intensity frightened her. These weren’t just words — she knew that if she was in trouble, this man would kill for her.

  Klimas stood straight, smiled. The moment of gravitas was over.

  “Besides,” he said, “I know you’re a fighter.” He pointed to the bruise under his right eye.

  She remembered lashing out, her elbow hitting something. Her face flushed red. “I did that?”

  “First shiner I’ve had in years.”

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!”

  He laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Is there anything I can do for you? Anything you need?”

  She was hungry. “A sandwich would be good.”

  “I’ll get food in here for you right away. Anything else?”

  Margaret gestured to the small trailer around them. “What is this room?”

  “It’s called a mission module,” Klimas said. “Instead of building everything in as a permanent part of the ship, the Coronado has space for modules that serve different purposes. This one, obviously, is a medical module. My unit has several — bunk modules, weapons maintenance, mission prep, that kind of thing. We’ve cleared out a bunk module for you, so you’ll have private quarters.”

  She shook her head. “Absolutely not, I can’t put your men out.”

  He held up a hand to stop her. “Normally, you’d get a stateroom, but we’re restricted to the hold in hopes of providing some separation between us and the crew.”

  “You mean between the crew and anyone who had contact with me, Clarence and Doctor Feely.”

  Klimas shrugged. “Tomato, tomahto. We’re in this together now. At any rate, the decision has been made — if you don’t sleep in the bunk room, it will sit empty.”

  “Thank you, Commander. At least I know chivalry isn’t dead.”

  His expression changed. For the first time, he looked uncomfortable.

  “There’s one more thing,” he said.

  Her eyes shot to his hip, to the holster there and the pistol in it. She hadn’t given it a second thought … until now.

  “You have to test me, right?”

  Klimas reached into a pocket of his fatigues and pulled out three white boxes. The number surprised her.

  “Three?”

  He nodded. “One for you, one for Levinson and one for me. All my men are testing every three hours. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to go first.”

  He offered her one of the white boxes. She stared at it. There was only one door into the mission module; by standing between the beds, Klimas had blocked the only way out. If she tested positive, he would kill her.

  But if she did see that red light, did she really want to live?

  She reached out and took the box.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she said.

  Seconds later, she stared at the blinking yellow light. Slowing, slowing …

  Green.

  Klimas smiled. “Only twenty-three more or so to go, right?”

  She ran through the math in her head. “Yeah, three days ought to do it. We’ll know by then.”

  Margaret sagged back into the bed. She still felt exhausted — the unexpected moment of intense fight-or-flight response hadn’t helped.

  Klimas opened another box, cleaned Levinson’s finger, then pressed the tester against it. Yellow, yellow, yellow …

  Green.

  “Two down,” he said. “My turn.”

  “Maybe you should give me the gun.”

  He opened his testing unit. “Don’t worry about that. If we see red, I step out that door and everything will be taken care of.”

  Yellow … yellow … yellow …

  Green.

  He gathered the boxes and testing units like nothing unusual had just happened, like he was cleaning up after a late lunch.

  “Margaret, you still look pretty beat. If you’d like to move to your bunk module, you could get more sleep.”

  He held up another white box: this one full of small, circular Band-Aids.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’d like to get out of here.” She removed the IV, wiped up the drop of blood and applied one of the bandages.

  “Lead the way, Paulius.”

  He opened the door for her. She stepped out onto the deck. She was in some kind of a cargo hold, much smaller than what she’d seen on the Brashear. Other mission modules were lined up end to end along the hold wall.

  Margaret noticed a SEAL standing about fifteen feet from the door she’d just walked out of. A young man, black. The name on his left breast read BOSH. He had a gun strapped to his chest, barrel angling down. She’d seen that weapon before, recognized it: an MP5.

  He had both hands on the weapon. Bosh must have been the one who would have taken care of everything if Klimas had tested positive.

  “Margaret?” Klimas said. “This way, ple
ase.”

  She followed him toward a module. From the outside, they all looked the same. She cast a glance over her shoulder; Bosh was following, hands still on his weapon.

  Margaret suddenly hoped the testing units were as accurate as Tim claimed — if her next test mistakenly returned a false-positive, she might not have time to ask for a second chance.

  Klimas held a door open for her. As Margaret stepped in, she saw Bosh take up position outside the module. Inside were two sets of stacked bunks, gray blankets wrapped so tightly around the mattresses you could bounce a quarter off them.

  “Take your pick,” Klimas said. “I’ll have that sandwich brought right out. Someone will check on you for your next test. Until then, I’ll ask that you stay in here.”

  She nodded. He left, closed the door behind him.

  Margaret sat on the first bunk. It seemed to pull her in, drag her down. With a U.S. Navy SEAL ready to execute her standing right outside, she fell asleep almost instantly.

  PAY THE MAN

  “It is necessary,” Bo Pan said. “We’ll take them one at a time.”

  Steve Stanton could barely breathe. His head throbbed. He was already responsible for killing one man, at least — and now Bo Pan wanted to murder three more?

  “No,” Steve said. “I won’t be a part of this.”

  Bo Pan’s eyes narrowed. As always, the two of them were alone in the tiny stateroom. Bo Pan stood in front of the closed door. If Steve tried to force his way past, would he make it? Would the old man shoot him down?

  “Steve, you have done your nation a great service, but our work is not over yet.”

  Steve tried to speak with volume, with intensity, but his throat hurt, felt painfully scratchy — all that came out of his mouth was a cracking whisper, the voice of a boy rather than that of a man.

  “We don’t have to kill them. They have no idea what’s going on. Just give them their money and they’ll leave.”

  Bo Pan’s nostrils flared. He drew a breath, ready to give a lecture.

  Steve spoke first. “If you kill them, I’ll tell.”

  The words sounded petulant, childish, but it was all he could think to say.

  Bo Pan’s head tilted forward until he stared out from under his bushy eyebrows.

  The footage from the Platypus replayed over and over again in Steve’s thoughts. Not the low-res pictures taken every twenty seconds, but the full-speed, high-def footage stored on the machine’s internal drives. The dark footage of the man entering the Los Angeles’s nose cone, light beaming from a bulky suit that looked like it belonged to like a fat astronaut … the look of surprise on the diver’s face as the Platypus shot in, cut the umbilical cord and then snatched the small, black container … a brief instant of that expression shifting to horror as the snake curled around his bulbous helmet.

  Steve hadn’t seen anything else, because the Platypus was already slithering quietly through the wreck, leaving the diver behind to die in an explosion of C-4 that likely blew the sub’s nose cone wide open.

  That diver’s blood was on Steve’s hands.

  He’d thought only of himself. He’d programmed what Bo Pan told him to program, because he’d just wanted to go home.

  Bo Pan wanted more death: Steve would not allow that to happen, even if saying no meant dying himself.

  Steve sat very still, wondering if he’d die right in this very room, among empty cans of Coke and crinkly bags of Doritos.

  And then, Bo Pan’s face softened. The old man relaxed. He let out a sigh.

  “As you wish,” he said. “We would not have achieved this without you, Steve. We will pay them, then we go on our way.”

  Steve blinked. “You mean it?”

  Again, the words of a child. He was in the middle of an international incident, had just defeated the U.S. Navy, was trying to stop the murder of three innocent men, and he sounded like a boy whose mother had just promised him a new toy.

  Bo Pan nodded. “Yes. You are right. It would just cause too many problems. They don’t know what is going on, so it is not worth the risk. We will dock and I will leave.”

  Which brought up another problem — Steve wanted to be as far away from Bo Pan as possible.

  “Am I supposed to go with you?”

  “No. You will return to your parents.”

  Steve was going home. In a day, maybe a little more, he’d be sitting at the restaurant, eating his father’s cooking. Could it be true?

  Bo Pan smiled a grandfather’s smile. “I am sorry you can’t come with me right now. Soon enough, however, you will be welcomed in China as a hero.”

  The old man thought Steve still wanted glory, when all Steve wanted to do was hide and forget this had ever happened.

  “Okay,” Steve said. “I understand.”

  Bo Pan took out his cell phone. He awkwardly typed in a message, one slow thumb at a time. He sent the message, yawned, then put the phone away.

  “I have arranged transportation,” he said. “Four men will be waiting for us when we arrive at the dock to help us with the Platypus. A truck will take you and your machine back to Benton Harbor.”

  Four men? The Platypus wasn’t that heavy. Steve and Bo Pan could move it on their own — crate and all — and had done so many times.

  Bo Pan rubbed his face. He sat on his bunk, laid his head on the pillow.

  “I am going to sleep,” he said. “Don’t make noise.”

  The old man started snoring almost immediately.

  Steve tried to stay calm. He felt a fever coming on, but he didn’t have time to get sick. He was probably safe. Probably. Bo Pan still needed him; just because they’d found one alien artifact didn’t mean there weren’t more on the bottom of Lake Michigan, and only Steve and his Platypus could recover those artifacts if they were discovered.

  But Bo Pan didn’t need Cooper, Jeff or José.

  Steve stared at Bo Pan for a few minutes, made sure the man was actually asleep. Then, he sat down at his little table. His fingers started working the laptop’s keys: quietly, so quietly.

  The storm outside was finally dying down. They would be in Chicago in a few hours.

  He had to act fast.

  KNOCKIN’ AT THE DOOR

  Heat.

  She felt it through her biosafety suit. Angry wind scattered loose papers across the crumbling asphalt and the cracked bricks that made up the road’s surface. At the end of the street, she could see the wide Detroit River — steam rose up from it, heavy steam, because the water was boiling. Abandoned buildings on either side of the street seemed to sag slightly, like they were exhausted, like the heat had taken the masonry and paint to just a few degrees below the melting point.

  This wasn’t right. Why was it so hot? The bomb hadn’t hit yet.

  She started to sweat suddenly, not in droplets but in buckets that poured off her, dripped down to fill the boots of her sealed suit.

  Sweat pooled around her ankles … her shins … her knees.

  Her hands shot to the back of her neck, clawing at the helmet’s release clasps. Sweat pooled to her thighs.

  If she drowned in her dream, would she ever wake up again?

  Gloved fingers searched for the clasps, darted back and forth, hunting desperately … but there were no clasps.

  Sweat rose past her belly button.

  “Hey, Margo.”

  She stopped moving, looked out the curved visor to the huge man who had suddenly appeared before her. Dirty-blond hair hung in front of his electric-blue eyes, even down past that winning smile.

  “Hey,” she said.

  The sweat tickled the base of her throat.

  “I got Chelsea,” he said. His smile faded. “The voices have finally stopped, but … I don’t think I’m doing so good. I’ve got those things inside of me.”

  She started to tell him that she didn’t care, that she really didn’t give a fuck about his goddamn problems, but when she opened her mouth to speak, it filled with the hot, salty taste of her o
wn sweat.

  The level rose to her nose.

  Perry reached out a hand. A triangle point pushed the skin of his palm into a pyramid shape, its blue color dulled by his nearly translucent flesh.

  The sweat rose above her eyes, stung them, turned Perry into a shimmering vision.

  Margaret heard a squelching sound, felt something hit her visor. She couldn’t see Perry — all she saw was a wiggling, bluish-black creature: an inch-high pyramid with tentacle-legs twice as long as the body, plastered to her visor like a still-twitching bug splattered on a windshield.

  The legs squirmed, spreading Perry’s blood across the clear surface.

  Margaret’s lungs screamed at her: breathe, you have to breathe!

  The hatchling’s tentacles wrapped around the back of her helmet. The triangular bottom of the pyramid body had little teeth that sank into the visor’s plastic, bit and pulled and ripped.

  It tore open a hole. The sweat started to lower. She felt it drop to her forehead, then her eyes. She blinked away the sting, holding on desperately, waiting for it to drop below her nose.

  When it did, Margaret drew in a gasping breath.

  The hatchling scurried down her suit. It hit the ground and ran for the sagging buildings.

  Perry’s smile returned.

  “It hurts,” he said. “Bad. I think they’re moving to the brain. Margaret, I don’t want you to lose control.”

  “You won’t,” she said, the words familiar and automatic even though so much of the dream had changed. “They won’t have time.”

  Perry’s smile widened. “I didn’t say my brain.” He put his hands on her shoulders, gave them a brotherly squeeze. “I said yours.”

  She heard a banging. Not the whistle of a bomb, not this time, but rather a banging as if someone had a gong and was hammering the whole city at once, bang-bang-bang.

  “Somebody knockin’ at the door,” Perry said. “Do me a favor, open the door, and let ’em in.”

  Bang-bang-bang!

  Margaret sat up, aching muscles voicing their complaint before they started shivering, shaking so bad that her back hurt and her teeth clacked. Her head throbbed. She needed water. Her throat felt so dry, so sore.