Nearest Night

by David VanDyke

  Frantic work to get the Edens out of Alaska and figure out a plan for massive numbers streaming out of North America occupied most of her time. She knew every minute resulted in more death, and she felt the passage of time like barbed wire around her neck.

  The damned Colombians hadn’t helped, wouldn’t see reason. She’d been forced to resort to blackmailing their entire leadership, threatening their livelihoods and their political positions, even their lives. There would be time to clean it all up later. After Spooky got back. Intelligence and spy work was one thing. Managing dirty politicians – a redundant phrase if she ever heard one – was not her strength.

  Cassandra started awake. Her mind had been wandering and she’d dozed off. She looked up to see her assistant.

  “What? What is it now?” asked Cassandra sharply.

  “Nothing important,” the woman said, her face falling. “It can wait.”

  Cassandra sighed. “No, come on in. I’m sorry for snapping at you. Just a little tired, that’s all. What do you have?”

  “Nothing yet from the Camp Pleasant operation due to the blizzard. All comms are down.”

  Cassandra tried to smile reassuringly. “No news is good news. They’ll be fine.” Who was she trying to convince? She could hear her own voice ring hollow.

  “There’s another matter. Something Reaper asked the counterintel team about.”

  Cassandra noticed for the first time the woman carried folders, holding them with both hands. “What is it?”

  “She asked us to check into the background of the two new team members. I tried to pass it along to her, but haven’t been able to reach her.”

  “And?”

  The woman hesitated. “Just some anomalies our counterintelligence people identified in the man, Conlan O’Malley.”

  Cassandra was torn, and so tired. She had dozens of crucial tasks vying for her attention. She finally surrendered and held out her hand for the folder. “Let me see.”

  The woman passed along one folder with obvious relief, yet Cassandra could see she clutched another.

  Would it never end? And Cassandra felt a sense of foreboding at the woman’s reaction. She opened the file and forced herself to ignore the fatigue. Her brain felt half mush.

  “It’s –”

  “Get me some fresh coffee, will you?” Cassandra interrupted, to stop her assistant from hovering.

  Flipping through pages, she didn’t see it at first. O’Malley’s story seemed all too common. It looked like a normal life gone bad, typical for escaping Edens. Grew up here. Went to school here. Got married there. Bought a house and started to raise a family. Infected with the Eden Plague by their youngest daughter, who caught it at daycare in the early days before the system took preventive measures. Months of hiding before being turned in by neighbors. Interrogation and imprisonment.

  Coffee arrived, along with more hovering. She sipped at the scalding liquid. Cassandra felt there was something she wasn’t seeing. “Does his statement check out?”

  “As much as it can,” her assistant answered. “All we have on him is open source material, but that is consistent.”

  “He said his family died in one of the camps,” Cassandra said flipping through the pages and stopping on a family photo of Conlan O’Malley, a lovely blond woman, a towheaded boy and a girl in pigtails.

  Cassandra went back to the man’s statement. I love my wife and children very much. “He speaks of them as if they are still alive,” Cassandra said.

  “Not uncommon,” said her assistant. “Our psychiatrists say it’s part of the grieving process. It takes us a while to adjust to our losses.”

  It does indeed, thought Cassandra.

  She finally closed the file and looked up. “I give up; what is it?”

  “The CI folks think it’s too perfect,” said the woman. “Usually there’s gaps. No one shows up here and has every piece of a four-year jigsaw puzzle ready to fill in.”

  Cassandra rubbed her face. “Okay, what else?”

  The woman hesitated, fingering the other folder. “It’s nothing concrete.”

  “Let me see,” said Cassandra holding out her hand.

  The woman gave her the folder. Cassandra opened it to find pages covered from top to bottom with police mug shots, names and dates of birth.”

  “One of our sources was able to download this on a thumb drive while visiting Eddyville Prison. The compound was converted to holding high-value Edens a year ago. They don’t seem to be abused there. No experiments, just tight security.”

  Cassandra flipped through the pages quickly. There were hundreds of pictures from all races and genders, and ages from children to young adults.

  One mug shot caught her eye. A little blond girl with pigtails.

  “Interesting,” said Cassandra comparing it to the family photo. “Not just the same child, it’s the same photo.”

  “I thought so too, but the names don’t match.”

  “What about the others? Are they in here too?”

  She nodded. “Page thirty and fifty-six.”

  Cassandra turned the pages rapidly and compared the mug shots to the family photo.

  “His family is still alive,” Cassandra said. “He lied about them.”

  “Unless it’s not his family at all. He could be a plant. They could have simply used handy images to build his history.”

  “Or it might be another cover layer, in case we find this out.

  “Could he be one of the CIA psychos?”

  Cassandra thought. “If he is, he won’t care about family, and these will be falsified. If he’s not a psycho, he’s being blackmailed.”

  “But he’s been in Colombia for almost a year, never made a misstep,” her assistant said.

  “That’s why they call them moles. They burrow in and wait.”

  “What do we do now?”

  Cassandra shook her head in frustration. “Who’s been working this?”

  “Fleede.”

  “Brief him and tell him to keep trying to contact the team to pass the info. That’s all we can do.”

  Her assistant took the files and left the office.

  I should have spotted this, Cassandra thought. I’d have seen it if I weren’t so preoccupied with everything else. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for just a moment to help her focus, and promptly fell asleep.

  Chapter 36

  Larry awoke with a start. It took him a few seconds to realize what was wrong. The emergency lamps over the exits were on in the hallway. The lighting was typically so dim that it wasn’t that much of a difference, but he also thought he could hear voices.

  The wind moaned outside, rising and falling, seeping through cracks in the hastily built blockhouse. Larry had seen the dark skies that morning in the yard and figured they were in for bad weather even before the guards had talked freely about the coming storm.

  He never knew exactly what time it was, but he had learned to judge night and day by the feeding cycles and the time they were allowed out in the yard. Lunch had been a while back, but he hadn’t seen dinner yet, so…late afternoon.

  Sleep was one of his few comforts. Larry guessed he slept fourteen hours a day or more. On the outside, in a normal workday he’d be lucky to get six. He figured it wasn’t just boredom. Studies had shown how sleep helped the body deal with trauma and prevent PTSD. Many psychologists had even postulated there was a correlation between the rise of PTSD and the lack of sleep for soldiers in the battlefield in the digital age. Prior to the advent of night vision and infrared sensors, most ground fighting had stopped at nightfall. With noise and light discipline and not much else to do, everyone had generally slept from dusk to dawn.

  Now warriors stayed awake instead of going to sleep at night and allowing their minds to cope and heal. Night attacks, video games, energy drinks, internet connectivity and a never-ending supply of entertainment, even in the forward areas, made it inevitable.

  So Larry hadn’t fought the urge to sl
eep all the time. He knew worry and the unknown were a constant threat. He let his mind deal with it while he was asleep. The nightmares and surreal dreams had been nearly constant, but he also knew this catharsis was not really a bad thing.

  One of his most prevalent dreams had been of lights going out and strange sounds. Each time, shadowy figures would come and take him away to be tortured, his family watching. Shawna had looked on him disapprovingly, wanting to know why he’d done this to them.

  It didn’t really make sense, but dreams seldom did, on the surface.

  The door at the end of the hallway banged open.

  Larry walked to the front of his cell to the sound of frantic voices. Guards rushed briskly by, carrying flashlights and weapons, proceeding through the door at the opposite end of the hallway.

  The boy Shadow stared at him from across the way, curiosity in his eyes.

  “I don’t know,” Larry said to the unspoken question. “Some sort of power outage, I guess.”

  A heavy, muffled boom shook the cells. Larry tensed. He strained his ears for an eternity, and then heard two more of the subsonic vibrations.

  That wasn’t thunder. Something’s happening.

  Pointing at Shadow, Larry said, “Get back. On the floor. Pull your pallet over you.”

  Shadow obeyed him.

  Larry could feel rather than see the boy’s eyes still on him.

  Lighter thuds, then rattles, and frantic yelling.

  Gunfire?

  The doorway at the end of the hall banged open again and loud, agitated voices echoed down the hall. Guards in combat gear and weapons jogged past. They ignored the pitiful creatures on their right and left.

  Larry watched them go by. One final guard came down the hall. He was preoccupied with trying to adjust the sling on his automatic shotgun. Backing up, Larry set himself as if on the one-yard line, feet against the wall for maximum push.

  If I did it once, I can do it again, especially now that I’ve regained some of my strength…

  When the guard jogged in front of the cell, Larry surged forward, aiming at the joint of the sliding door where once he’d torn it off its hardware. Something snapped – maybe a pulley, maybe a bone in his body – and a gap opened. Not enough to get through, but perhaps enough to reach –

  Larry’s hand slipped off the guard’s uniform, but caught on the weapon sling wrapped around the man’s body. He roared with the pain that blossomed in his own shoulder, and jerked the man off his feet.

  The guard slammed forcefully against the edge of the door with an audible crunch. Blood gushed from a broken nose. His eyes rolled up at Larry like a wounded horse, confused and scared, and then he sagged, unconscious.

  The door at the end of the hall opened again to show a figure outlined in bright light, peering into the dimness. “Hey, Stimpy,” said the voice. “You better get your sorry ass out here or the Chief is going to throw you in a cage with one of the sickos. Stimpy? You there?” The man waited, and then began marching back toward them, shielding his eyes with his hand as if to see better. “Just great. Probably decided it was a good time to go take a shit,” he muttered.

  Larry fumbled with the unconscious guard, pulling the man’s pistol from his holster and transferring it to his left hand. The marching guard froze at the sight of Stimpy on the floor. His eyes widened, and then moved up to meet Larry’s just over the barrel of the pistol. He fumbled for the rifle slung over his shoulder, but before he could even fully grasp the weapon, Larry shot him in the face.

  A wave of guilt at the killing washed over him, but the guard had been in full combat gear, with heavy Kevlar vest and helmet. Only a head shot would ensure his silence.

  Forgive me, Lord, but this is war.

  The sound of the pistol had seemed impossibly loud. Larry waited to see if more guards would come in response, but none did. He braced himself, pushing his upper body through the narrow gap, and grabbed the first guard’s access badge.

  Everything around there was controlled by the access badges and PIN codes. He hoped the locking mechanisms ran on emergency power as well.

  Larry shook the guard at his feet. “Hey, Stimpy. Wake up. You took a little fall. You’ll be fine, but I need to get you some help.”

  The man the looked at Larry in confusion.

  “Stimpy, I need to know your PIN code. So I can go and get help.”

  The man moaned and grumbled.

  Larry shook him. “Come on, champ. Dig deep, buddy. Stay with me. Eye of the tiger, come on. What’s your PIN code?”

  Leaning forward, Larry was about to shake the man again when he began to mumble. “Six...two...two...three...one.”

  “Six two two three one. Good job, Stimpy.” Larry slugged the man again, putting him out, and then licked his own finger and shoved it in the guard’s mouth, hoping that would transmit the Eden Plague.

  It took Larry more than two minutes to force himself far enough through the gap in the partially broken door to reach the card reader and PIN pad. If he hadn’t been so long-limbed, he might not have been able to do it, as it was set well out of ordinary reach. Finally, though, the mechanism released and he freed himself.

  He checked the head-shot guard, hoping against hope that the man still lived and that the Plague might save him, but he felt no pulse under his finger. Stuffing the pistol into a pocket and taking the shotgun and ammo harness off the guard, he fastened it about himself. There was a flashlight attached to the end of the shotgun and he turned it on.

  Then he used the card and PIN to open Shadow’s cell. The boy leaped out and clutched him tightly. “Easy there,” said Larry. “We’ll need to keep moving. Stay close to me, okay?”

  Shadow slowly let go and nodded.

  Walking up and down the line of cells, Larry unlocked all of them. Some of the freed rushed forward and embraced him. Others seemed terrified of his harness and shotgun, and cowered in their corners. Still others stared back at him, catatonic.

  The ambulatory Edens rushed forward and pushed open the door at the end of the hall, going through the exit in a mass of arms and legs. Larry could see another corridor with more light, and the gunfire sounds from outside got markedly louder.

  He looked at the Edens who wouldn’t and couldn’t move. He didn’t want to leave them, but saw no choice. Turning from the exit, he nearly shot Stimpy in surprise. The man stood against Larry’s cell, wobbling back and forth.

  “What did you do to me?” he asked with wide eyes.

  “I infected you. Thank me later. We don’t have time right now. You can either run after those Edens to freedom or stick around here and see how you like being on the other side of these bars.”

  Stimpy stared in sudden comprehension, and then turned and darted down the hallway toward the exit.

  “It’s time to get out of here,” Larry said to Shadow and began guiding the boy out of their house of horrors.

  Larry heard the door open behind him and was turning when he felt pain explode in the side of his head. He crashed to the floor and felt blood gushing from his scalp. With a kind of stunned wonder, he lifted his hand to discover his left ear missing.

  Rolling onto his side, he saw Bauersfeld shuffling toward him on one crutch, her other hand holding a smoking pistol. “You…you…” She fired again. The bullet ricocheted off the floor and into his thigh.

  Larry struggled to get to his feet in the dimness, leaving the shotgun with its shining flashlight on the floor. He knew he only had a few seconds before Bauersfeld’s eyes adjusted to the dimness and she began shooting again. Fumbling for his pistol, he found his pocket empty.

  Only one thing to do. He rushed her.

  She might have seen him coming. Her pistol boomed once more.

  When Larry hit Bauersfeld he drove into her, falling to the ground, slamming her forcefully into the concrete floor using the considerable weight of his entire body. Her head thumped off the floor.

  She looked up at him, dazed. It amazed him she was still conscious,
and she still held onto her weapon.

  He pried it out of her hand. Hatred and anger warred within him, struggling with his inner chivalry, his reluctance to destroy a fallen enemy, even one as evil as Bauersfeld.

  “I wish I could simply knock you out and infect you, but I bet you’re still full of antivirals,” he said. “So I’m sorry, and this isn’t personal, but…” He turned the handgun in his huge paw and slipped his finger into the trigger guard when a nearby gunshot deafened him. The woman under him jerked and stiffened.

  Larry turned to see Shadow holding the pistol he’d lost, its barrel smoking.

  He reached out to take it from the wide-eyed boy, and then checked Bauersfeld.

  Dead.

  He’s too young to be accountable, he thought. He doesn’t understand what he’s done, killing a helpless enemy, but eventually he will, and it will haunt him.

  Larry stood, pocketing one of the pistols before turning Shadow away. “Don’t look, kid,” he said. “She’s gone. She’ll never hurt you again.”

  The boy didn’t speak, but hugged Larry, shaking.

  The exit door behind him creaked. Larry turned to see someone come through the door, a spot of illumination in his hand. He fired in the direction of the figure and the flashlight fell, shattering with an audible breaking of glass.

  Larry stood still and squinted in the dimness, Shadow cowering behind him. He got the distinct impression that whoever had come through the door was creeping down the hall, quietly, carefully. Raising the pistol again, he aimed at the blob of darkness taking on the shape of a man.

  And stopped as something in him shouted of recognition. Blood covered the apparition and it held a knife.

  “Skull?” Larry asked, stunned.

  “Hey, Larry. Long time no see.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Rescuing your fat, lazy, fried-chicken-eating ass, if you don’t fucking shoot me again.”

  “I’m gonna let that slide, you skinny cracker. Hot damn, son, am I glad to see you.”