Nearest Night

by David VanDyke

  Skull was indigestion.

  The cold logic of insurgency dictated that he kill as many northerners as possible and spare the locals, sowing distrust between Latinos and gringos. When he did, government cracked down, locals protested and rioted and bombed.

  Skull loved it.

  This target was special: a Security Service Psycho officer, one of the tiny percentage of infected humanity that the Plague turned evil…or at least narcissistic. Most people considered the two the same.

  Like many low-level Psychos in the Unionist-Party-dominated UG, this one led an SS death squad, searching out the UGNA’s enemies, criminal or political, real or imagined.

  Crosshairs drifted downward to rest on the norteamericano. Skull inhaled, then let his breath out most of the way and paused naturally. His finger gently squeezed the trigger, surprising him with the sharp report. All well-aimed shots were unanticipated; that was a secret of the sniper, especially for shots like this at over eight hundred meters.

  He didn’t have to see the Psycho fall, didn’t have to observe his head explode like a ripe melon. Zen-like, as soon as the bullet left the barrel he had felt the shot was good. Skull was already moving from his position before the first sirens wailed and the SS airmobile reaction team spun into the air.

  He slid the weapon into the beat-up guitar case, barely large enough to contain the gun. A sombrero settled onto his head, completing his mariachi costume. With his dark eyes and deeply tanned face wrinkled from a lifetime of outdoor exposure, he became just another local musician heading to a concert. His Apache grandfather had bequeathed him the ability to tan darker than any ordinary white man, and he blended in among the South and Central Americans with ease. Down the stairs, off the roof of the building and into the slums, in two minutes he had disappeared among the bars and cantinas and squalid apartments.

  Helicopters pummeled the air overhead, too late. The crowds on the dirty streets hid him, one among many, as he made his way to his dwelling.

  In his tiny rented room he searched his own face, dark eyes like pits in the cracked mirror. Over fifty now, he was resigned to the aging as long as he could keep the hate alive. He nursed it like a beloved child; the killing gave his life meaning. Perhaps someday the fear of age and infirmity would tempt him to accept the emasculating Eden Plague virus that had upended his world.

  But not today. Today he had filled his cup of death. Today he was whole.

  Water on his face, on his hands. In the fading light coming through the cheap curtains it turned to blood, but he ignored the sight by long practice. He reached for a bottle of mescal. “Arriba, abajo, al centro y pa ´dentro,” he murmured, and then drank a slug from the neck. The traditional toast of “up, down, center and in” seemed to make the smoky liquor taste better.

  Opening the guitar case, he gently removed his exquisite rifle. Before he stripped it down and cleaned it, he took out a knife and made a thin hash mark at the end of the row on the stock.

  His fingertips touched the four hundred and fifty-five tiny indentations, one for each kill with the weapon. The first ninety-six had been the enemies of his country, back when he had a country, back when the United States was something to believe in. He’d killed in Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and countless other places.

  The rest of the marks…those were personal. Payback for his old commander Zeke, payback for hacker Vinny, payback for the innocents in the death camps and for the other millions murdered by the chickenshit jackbooted thugs of the Unionist Party and the United Governments, those that had corrupted his flag, stole his Constitution, and murdered all he held sacred.

  Who needs sex, he thought, when killing is so much more satisfying.

  Closing the knife, he began to lovingly service his weapon.

  Chapter One

  Colonel Tran Pham “Spooky” Nguyen, Free Communities Armed Forces, checked the action on his well-worn P90, ensuring for the tenth time that it was ready to function: ready to pepper his opponents with Needleshock rounds, the apex of FCAF nonlethal-weapons technology.

  Each tiny ultra-high-velocity discarding-sabot shell accelerated a narrow penetrator to over five thousand feet per second, able to defeat most body armor. The needle contained a highly charged capacitor that dumped enough electricity into the target to put him out cold. Combined with the ablative Eden Virus coating, it was the most effective small-arms ammunition the FCAF had. As long as the user was careful to keep his shots away from the enemy’s head and heart, it was nonlethal. Every wound would initiate the Eden Plague cascade, immediately organizing the infectee’s body to begin healing thousands of times faster than normal, making them into Edens.

  This had led to the absurdity of enemy-issued body armor that deliberately did not protect the head and heart of ordinary troops; their political masters preferred a dead soldier to a converted one. As a result, enemy morale was usually low.

  Spooky looked around at his team, eight people crammed into a small submersible and crated inside a standard high-cube intermodal shipping container. The carefully shielded box was designed to appear to any scanners to hold high-quality electronic cabling; in reality the material was mere camouflage that hid the men and the mini-sub from prying technological eyes.

  The team felt a thump as a crane lifted their container off its stack inside the Maersk cargo ship and placed it onto a robotic carrier on shore. The spidery vehicle followed its electronic trails in a carefully orchestrated dance around the Port of Hawaii transshipment system, to join in a queue of its fellows waiting to load onto the United Governments of North America-flagged hydrofoil freighter Stetson. When the robot attained the front of the line, it placed its container gently onto the tarmac, precisely one meter from the adjacent box, and scooted back down the automated roadways to its next assignment.

  Shipborne trade still flowed, the lifeblood of the world economy. Though the restrictions and checks were repeated and onerous, vessels from all over the world loaded and offloaded goods through Port of Hawaii.

  The team tried to relax in the dimness of a glowstick taped to the overhead of their mini-sub. They had checked their weapons repeatedly, they had meditated and dictated family messages into memory chips, they had told stories and read or listened to books on their readers, they had watched movies, and they had slept. And twice each day they put on their virtual reality goggles, set down their weapons, picked up motion-controllers, and ran through the mission in VR space. It had been a long six days, and it would be one more before they could move.

  Picking them up from the tarmac, the crane on the tender swung the metal box through the air to be deposited in the narrow hold of the Stetson. Other containers soon joined them, and any concerns about discovery evaporated.

  One more day. The six men and two women wiggled in their seats, seeking comfort that would not come.

  Spooky let them sleep while he ran through the mission on his own glasses once more to fend off creeping claustrophobia. It would be tricky, and it would be dangerous, but if they succeeded, they would change the course of the sputtering, back-and-forth conflict between the Free Communities and the Big Three.

  After fighting one sort of war or another for many decades, first against the Communist government of Vietnam, then for the US Special Forces, the thought of peace, political or personal, had seemed just a remote dream.

  Until now.

  Hours later a feeling of motion alerted them to the ship’s departure, heading for New Zealand and, unbeknownst to its crew, for an open-ocean rendezvous designated by nothing more than a set of encrypted GPS coordinates.

  Chapter Two

  Rick Johnstone opened the office door without knocking. “Mister Chairman, they just struck Kinshasa.”

  Free Communities Council Chairman Daniel Markis’ blood ran cold. “Elise?” he asked.

  “Just fine, sir. She left a few hours before. All the staff did, when the warning came in. They’re on their way to the facility in South Africa.”

  “T
hank you, Rick. You can go. Tell Millicent to hold my calls and visitors for a few minutes, please.” Another few thousand civilians dead, collateral damage from the UGNA’s “precision” strikes. Markis put his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes. The latest atrocity weighed on his soul. He told himself he was not responsible, but the accusing serpent in his head hissed, Liar!

  He thought he had gotten rid of that thing when the Eden Plague healed his body and his brain. But the virus could only fix organic issues; he had lived with the snake for too long before his infection to lose it that easily.

  He stared at the deep crimson beret that sat on the shelf above his desk. It was symbolic, a replacement. His original one, the one he had kept with him everywhere he went, from Afghanistan to Mogadishu, from Iraq to Yemen, was lost, probably in some UGNA evidence vault. But the symbol had a powerful meaning for him. The metal flash on its face showed an angel with her arms wrapped around a globe, and the motto underneath: That Others May Live.

  There are worse things to dedicate a life to.

  Markis shook himself out of his funk. I am the Chairman, damn it! He was the closest thing the Free Communities had to a leader, or at least a figurehead. When he proposed something, it usually got done with a minimum of wrangling, as long as it made some kind of sense. The Eden Plague had not only wiped out disease, it had wiped out a lot of petty-mindedness and self-interest. But it hadn’t wiped out politics; it had just made the struggles a bit more honest.

  He steeled himself to address the Council once again. Opening his door he called, “Millicent, please ask Rick to set up a video teleconference with all available Council members at 1400 hours.” Two p.m. was a good time for videoconferences over the secure link, from Eastern Standard Time in the Americas. Asians and Australians would be up already, or at least could be, and Europe and Africa would not be abed yet. That gave him half an hour to get some lunch.

  Walking down the hall to the little cafeteria, he got himself a big bowl of stew and some iced tea. He thanked the server and went over to look out the second-floor window at the view of the town of Tunja, Colombia Free Community. It was an unlikely place from which to run a world resistance movement; that was exactly why he did.

  Stomach filled and back in his office, he reviewed his notes for a few minutes, then walked down to the basement where the secure conference room waited. He nodded to Rick Johnstone, grown strong, free of the muscular dystrophy that had made his early life a creeping hell.

  “Most of them are up already. I have a few more to connect.”

  “Thanks. Let me know.” Markis sat down, shuffled papers for a few moments.

  “All right, everyone’s up, and you’re live, Mister Chairman.”

  Nodding once more, he turned to address the Council of the Free Communities. “Hello everyone. I won’t say good day. By now most of you should have heard about Kinshasa. Here’s a video of the last strike, taken from about ten miles away.”

  The feed dissolved to a grainy shot of the entrance to the lab complex, then pulled back to see the scrubland between the cameraman and the target, and the city of Kinshasa, Congo, beyond. The unnamed videographer spoke as the image jumped and steadied. “Should be any time now. Hope to hell I’m far enough away.”

  A few more seconds went by, then streaks of light and explosions whited out the picture. As it cleared, they could see several mushroom clouds, miniature copies of the aftermath of nuclear explosions. One billow, off target, rose deep inside the densely populated city. Then the picture faded.

  Markis spoke. “It was a sub-launched ballistic missile, another non-nuclear Trident MIRV, multiple kinetic strike. I believe this happened because someone leaked word of the research facility there. I will tell you in confidence that our science program has not been seriously damaged, because none of our scientists had occupied the facility. They attacked too soon, before the lab was in operation. But we cannot let these atrocities continue.”

  He wasn’t going to tell the full council about the warning that his human intelligence network, his spies in the United Governments territory, had provided. While the video teleconference technology was secure, the Council itself, and the staffs of the members, were not.

  Like any political body, it leaked like a sieve.

  He selected one of the blinking lights that told him a member wanted to address the Council. This was one of his most important powers: the power to choose who would be heard, and in what order. Best to let the opposition speak first. “Yes, Ms. Farnsworth?”

  “This proves what I have said repeatedly. We must shut down the research programs. There has been very little progress in the last five years, since the fertility and metabolism issues were solved; the virtue effect has proven itself uncrackable. And the high-tech weapons programs are a waste of resources and cost countless lives as they provoke the Big Three to these horrifying actions. We must bide our time. Our projections show that the Plague will eventually reach everyone. If nothing else, we will outlive our opponents.”

  “Thank you.” He pressed another button, to hear from a more moderate source. “Go ahead, Mr. Ramirez.”

  “Thank you Mr. Chairman. We are not responsible for the evil of the UGNA, the Russians or the Chinese. But what are we doing to curb these leaks and security breaches? If there were none, they would have no reason to target facilities, real or imagined, with weapons of mass destruction. I cite Antigua.”

  Antigua had been incinerated eight years ago, before the Nuclear Concord agreement that ended atomic weapon use, apparently because of a mere rumor of a nonexistent Free Community research facility.

  Markis pressed the speaking key. “Unfortunately the virtue effect does not preclude simple foolishness and gossip. It’s human nature. We cannot and will not use heavy-handed tactics like our opponents to try to control leaks. That’s an impossible and self-destructive task. All of the Free Communities must implement their security plans in their own way. Next?”

  The debate carried on for forty-five minutes; complaints and recriminations, discussion points and politesse back and forth. The only difference between this and a pre-Plague political body is that occasionally someone’s mind was changed by logic and common sense. And they were more or less civil. And there were no filibusters allowed. He supposed it was an improvement.

  When the requests for the floor finally died down, Chairman Markis addressed them. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement that may provide some hope. As you know, the Central American arena has proven the UG’s current quagmire. Since seizing everything south to Panama, the drug cartels, the Maoist guerillas, the independence movements, and simple intractable poverty consumes their resources at an alarming rate. The employment of the Security Service Psychos has exacerbated the situation for them exponentially, a tremendous blunder. Death squad tactics and gratuitous atrocities have turned the population against them.”

  “The Free Communities have survived, even prevailed in Africa, South America and Australia, and the Neutral States have stabilized Europe, Southwest Asia, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent, but the situation has become stalemated. Millions of people languish in concentration camps, enslaved and starving. They don’t even have the benefit of the updates in the virus that have eliminated the hunger and the fertility issues. Our Armed Forces commandos have rescued as many as we can. But I am here now to tell you we have a chance to change the balance of power, to break the stranglehold of tyranny for millions.”

  He checked his watch. They should be boarding the submarine just about now. Markis continued.

  “I can now tell you that our intelligence service is on the verge of scoring a tremendous success. We have suborned a high-ranking official in the UGNA, an official so high that he ranks near the Triumvir-Presidents themselves. He has provided us with a data dump of the UGNA strategic targeting and activation codes. In a matter of hours, we will be able to deploy our latest cyber weapons to take control of, and selectively launch their own ballistic and cruise
missiles, regardless of warhead, at targets of our choosing.”

  Almost every picture on the screen flashed with a request for the floor; he had expected that, and he ignored them. “Please, let me finish, then everyone will have a chance to speak. Perhaps I can answer some of your questions right away.”

  “I have not gone mad, nor have our intelligence specialists. No one will be launching these weapons against human targets. But in the narrow window we expect to have before the UG regains control of their arsenal, we intend to retarget and launch as many missiles as possible, to strike in harmless, empty places. These weapons are expensive, and they are deadly; if we can expend hundreds or even thousands of them, we can substantially reduce our vulnerability. There will be no nuclear detonations. We do not have the Permissive Action Link codes to activate the weapons themselves. But in one stroke we might just destroy more than half their strategic weapons.”

  Now if they’ll just believe this necessary lie.

  Chapter Three

  Larry Nightingale rolled over in the gentle morning’s light. He gazed for a time at the perfect curve of his wife Shawna’s waist and hips hiding under satin sheets. He wondered how he could ever have been so lucky, and sent a prayer of thanks skyward. His Baptist faith, never very strong, had taken a beating for a while. Now, despite the struggles he saw miracles everywhere, mostly in the love of a woman he knew was far too good for him.

  Aware of his contemplation, she stirred and rolled over to face him.

  He reached out to touch the notch at her throat, the mark of a master craftsman, he had always thought. How could anyone think that something as beautiful as this woman came about by random natural forces?