Resistance: Pandora, Book 3

by Eric L. Harry

  The next asylum applicant, or whatever they were properly called, seemed terrified. Maybe it was the tumult on the streets, which if the pattern was repeated would soon clear, as the risk of infection set in, then fill again in a burst of violence some hours after Noah would, he hoped, be airborne.

  “It says here you’re proficient in C-sharp, JavaScript, and Python. That’s an odd combination,” Noah said, having no idea whether that statement was true.

  “Well, I was sorta…. Sorta self-taught.”

  Noah leafed through the man’s five-page resume. “This says you got a CS degree at the University of Washington.” The man nodded. “Go fighting….” Noah said. His interviewee stared back blankly. “The school’s mascot? Go…Cougars?”

  “Right. Yeah. Go Cougars.”

  The Cougars were Washington State. UW were the Huskies. Watching college football was finally paying off for Noah.

  “I know the instructions said that these wouldn’t be technical interviews, but I’ve got a little coding challenge here.” Noah proffered his laptop without showing the applicant that on its screen was an Excel spreadsheet. “I’d like you to complete it in, say, Python.”

  The guy’s jaw dropped. Turns out he was an Uber driver who thought he’d heard enough backseat chatter to pass for a software engineer. “Look, man, I’ll join the army or Peace Corps when I get there. I’ll do whatever shit job it takes. I’m a self-starter.”

  “Sorry, buddy. I’ve got seats only for designated specialties.”

  The man bared his teeth in a sneer as he hissed. “Fuckin’ figures those asswads would get a goddamn charter flight outta here, while the rest of us….”

  Noah’s right hand dropped to the butt of the pistol wedged into the seat cushion beside his right thigh. It almost came out when the boy’s chair scraped the floor. But the guy went to the door and flung it open, admitting the noise that abated as he shouted, “Fuck the system!” and shot both middle fingers in all directions and back at Noah.

  “Fuck the fucking system!” shouts grew ever fainter as the door closed and the Uber driver turned anarchist paraded away. A petite blond girl entered. Before handing Noah her resume, she reluctantly lowered her mask and gave him her best selfie smile.

  “Sit,” Noah said as brusquely as possible without reducing the girl to tears. He’d been warned to brace himself for all kinds of offers, especially sexual favors. The girl perched timidly on the front of her chair. Mechanical engineer. Worked at a pre-revenue nanosatellite startup. She looked the part. His BS meter never alerted. Without asking her a single question, he tore a boarding pass off the roll. “Welcome to Texas.”

  So it went until he handed out his last boarding pass. By prearrangement, Noah pretended to go to the bathroom past the suddenly hushed, smiling, attentive crowd waiting outside his office. He actually did go to the bathroom while a police officer retrieved his bag. “Good luck to you,” he said to the cop at the landing in the fire escape.

  “Don’t forget about us out here,” were the man’s parting words through his mask.

  Noah waited in the fire escape until the last of the screeners arrived. The building was still crammed with asylum applicants, but the screeners fled before they broke the news that the three flights were full and no others were planned.

  They followed busses of asylum seekers back to the airport. The emergency detours at civil disturbances grew too numerous to count. Looters were the most common, but each block was its own microcosm. On some people swept up after earlier unrest. But most law-abiding citizens seemed to be in hiding from the disease, or the Infecteds’ violence, or the lawlessness that preceded both, or all of the above. Rocks peppered Noah’s SUV so often the clunks lost their shock value. But the female screener in the seat beside him flinched every time and finally said, “Fucking animals.” Once, the convoy came to a complete stop, which Noah had learned was a bad thing. Up ahead, young men—it was almost always young men—were pounding on and ultimately rocking a bus full of engineers, scientists, and professors who clutched golden tickets, so close to perceived salvation.

  A marshal in the front opened the SUV’s skylight with one hand. The woman beside Noah jumped and gasped as the marshal fired his automatic three times into the air. Two spent shell casings rattled off the top of the SUV and one spun to a rest between Noah’s feet. But it was the cops in squad cars, who popped tear gas grenades, that cleared the street. That left Noah’s eyes watering and the woman beside him coughing and gagging.

  Noah should have taken a less risky job, he decided. But it was his nature to provide for his family, and this job had come with a car and better housing.

  Chapter 34

  NEW ROANOKE, VIRGINIA

  Infection Date 99, 2100 GMT (5:00 p.m. Local)

  Emma, Samantha, Dwayne, and Sheriff Walcott stared out through the lobby windows at the noisy crowd in the street. The former branch bank was their new seat of government after the city hall had mysteriously burned down. Everyone in the street wore some form of mask. Samantha was craning her neck to read their handmade signs.

  “Vaccines now,” she read in low tones, minus the sign’s exclamation mark. Tilting her head to the other side, she read, “Halt the executions.” “We are Americans too.” She looked over at Emma. Sam was growing taller and was almost Emma’s height. The crowd began a spontaneous chant of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”

  Pop. Emma started. Something had chipped the window. Dwayne said he had people taking video to identify Rule breakers. Walcott said his men were down the street in case force was needed. “They’re breakin’ the Rule on gatherin’ size.”

  “That Rule was meant to prevent infected mob violence,” Emma replied.

  “Yeah, but a rule’s a rule.”

  “Why don’t you try talking to them?” Emma suggested. “Ask them to disperse.”

  Walcott shrugged, straightened his cowboy hat, and walked out onto the front steps. The instant he appeared, there arose a chorus of boos and jeers. Samantha said, “What do you think their problem with him is? The arrests and executions?”

  As Walcott stood there, both hands raised to try to gain their silence, a single shot rang out. Walcott staggered, dropped to one knee, and sat. A red stain spread on the back of his khaki blouse before he keeled over, presumably dead.

  Dwayne said, “I’ll call his people at the firehouse,” and raised his radio to his lips. But Emma held out a hand and stopped him.

  Outside, the Uninfecteds were screaming, shouting, and running despite the fact there was no more gunfire. Within seconds, the street was empty. All that was left of the demonstration was discarded signs and Walcott’s corpse.

  Samantha said, “Well that’s one way to quiet a crowd.”

  “Dwayne,” Emma said, “can you establish contact with the military in Norfolk?” He nodded. “Reach out to them and request doses of vaccine. As much as they can spare.”

  Samantha said, “They won’t give us any, will they?”

  “No. But we can have Mrs. Stoddard tour the Uninfected communities and report that we asked. Also, Samantha, come up with a list of punishments for Uninfecteds short of execution and propose them to me.” Samantha nodded and made a note in her book. “And Dwayne, ID any leaders of that crowd out there from your video and make them disappear, slowly, over the next week or so. Quietly.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Dwayne replied before departing.

  Sam asked, “Should we, like, do something about his body out there?”

  “They’ll pick it up on the evening run.” But Samantha, it seemed to Emma, was concerned about something, and stared at Sheriff Walcott’s remains. “What?”

  “I was just thinking,” the girl prefaced, an unusual sentence construction for an Infected, “we do all these things—the Rules, the executions, the ultimatums to holdout towns and the assaults when their deadlines pass—but why?”
r />   “I don’t understand your question.”

  “I mean, what if you execute me?” The girl stared at Walcott as if it were her answer.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “What if I fail my temperament test tomorrow?” Sam asked.

  “Then you didn’t design it very well, did you?”

  “I told you. I used that scientist lady from the NIH lab to design it.”

  “You’ll pass,” Emma said, turning to leave.

  “That’s not the point.” Emma stopped to hear Samantha out. “Aren’t we losing sight of what all this is supposed to be about? Isn’t it supposed to help us survive? Establish order and security. Restore the economy. Defend ourselves against attacks. That’s all about staying alive. But if I fail my test tomorrow, you’ll kill me. Or the SE guys will, anyway.”

  “What’s your point?”

  Samantha turned and looked straight at Emma. “Are you taking the test?”

  Emma’s anxiety skyrocketed, and she felt compelled to turn away as she balled her fists and felt her jaw clench tightly. After a silence, she decided that the best thing to do was to leave, which she did, stepping over Walcott’s corpse on the way to her Honda, returning to Walcott, and taking the sheriff’s pistol belt, holster, and automatic.

  Chapter 35

  DENVER, COLORADO

  Infection Date 101, 1130 GMT (5:30 a.m. Local)

  The alarm clock on Isabel’s iPhone sounded at an ungodly hour. No light filtered into the hotel room through the drapes. Rick snored lightly in the warm bed beside her. “Hey,” she said, poking his bare back. “It’s time to get up. We’ve gotta be there in an hour.”

  “Wake me up five minutes before we leave.” He pulled the sheet up to his neck.

  Men. Isabel spent forty-five minutes showering, blow drying her hair, brushing her teeth, putting on makeup, and carefully folding her freshly washed clothes. She used the bathroom light to stow them in her backpack before dissolving into tears. When would this all be over? How would it end? I can’t take this for much longer! She sat on the bed, sighed, and dried her face as Rick slept through it all. She made little noises and wiggled side to side but got zero reaction. She flicked the lamp on the nightstand on and off repeatedly. Nothing. But by God if she broke a twig Rick would dive for his fucking rifle.

  “Time to get up!” Isabel said more loudly than was necessary.

  Rick swung his feet to the floor, pulled up his trousers, laced his boots, pulled on his T-shirt, and buttoned his camo blouse. “Morning,” he said with a yawn on the way to the bathroom. She watched in amazement. He brushed his teeth and shaved in less time than she took putting her hair into a bun. “Let’s go,” he said upon returning.

  “Don’t wanta hold you up or anything.”

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “Newp.” She grabbed her carbine from where it was propped against the nightstand.

  Rick slept through the three minute drive to army HQ, missing Isabel’s eye rolls, shakes of her head, and sighs. She’d slept poorly, eaten poorly, and had no idea where they’d be sent next, or whether she would ever reunite with her family. Oh, and the world was coming to an end. Rick was apparently going to snore through it. His helmet rested comfortably against the Humvee’s grimy armored window.

  The brakes groaned and squeaked. “Rick! We’re there!”

  He awoke to 100 percent alertness on command. His only confusion was at seeing her shaking head. “So…everything’s okay?” He arched his eyes wide for a pupil check at the sandbagged entrance.

  “I’m fine.” She winced in the glare of the pen light. A thermometer rolled across her forehead beeped. “I’m just, you know, enjoying the hell out of life.”

  That confused him, which was probably the best she could hope for given that he couldn’t exactly stop what was happening. They had spent several days waiting on transportation to Texas, passing on several convoys headed south in hopes of catching a flight. It should have been a wonderful few days. They had little to do other than the daily trip to army headquarters and a few inspection trips they made to area troop emplacements, logistics hubs, vehicle depots, etc. But was anyone reading their reports? “Here goes nothing.” She clicked Send and at least always got a bing and green checkmark.

  Isabel kept returning to speculation about Hank Rosenbaum’s departure. Rick’s only response other than a shrug was to suggest that maybe Hank had headed home to be with his family. He was back to shrugs when she bombarded him with legitimate follow-up questions like why he would do that, what could he have been thinking, how did he expect to make it on foot through forest fires and charged crowds of Infecteds.

  Once, and only once, she had received a call from a number she didn’t recognize. It was General Browner. “Dr. Miller, I’m sending you a video you might find interesting based on your and…and Dr. Plante’s research.” The mention of Brandon, who had died so selflessly in New York, stabbed at Isabel’s heart. “To protect sources and methods, you can only watch it once before it self-encrypts. It was taken with a hidden body camera by an immunized agent we trained to mimic the behavior of Infecteds. He infiltrated a charging crowd out west. If you have any thoughts or comments, you can message me.”

  After Browner signed off, Isabel called Rick over and they watched the video together. The camera had obviously been mounted somewhere mid torso given that the faces of the Infecteds all around the agent were slightly above the camera’s perspective. The eyes of most of the people were black, although a few showed resolving mydriasis indicating they had been infected at least a week earlier. The only sounds were from a distant loudspeaker, which bellowed orders to disperse and warnings of deadly force.

  The eerie silence of the Infecteds all around was striking. “This is your final warning!” came the amplified voice from afar. The only movement came from the Uninfected agent, who slowly pivoted his torso. Even that slight motion attracted suspicious glances and clearly caused the agent to minimize his movements.

  The video jerked the instant the guns erupted. A roar arose from the crowd. Everything was a jumble of wild swings of the camera, fierce visages, bared teeth, and hands raised to claw. The image darkened as the lens pressed against the back of the attacker in front of the agent, replaced by the shuffling feet below as the agent stooped amid the rattling cacophony of gunfire. Every so often, the relentless charge passed a prone attacker, or the agent swung wildly around as if to escape the onslaught and Isabel and Rick caught glimpses of a head explode on impact of a high-powered round, or a body spin and collapse, or an entire swath of attackers collapse after stumbling over the previously fallen.

  The wild swings of the camera stilled. The agent, audibly panting, took cover behind an overturned van. The crowd surged past despite heads bursting and bodies falling. Single rounds repeatedly punched through two or even three Infecteds at a time, but the mass’s momentum seemed unstoppable.

  In a final bit of horror, a blood-splattered face of a black-eyed Infected rose from the ground right in front of the camera. The woman’s lips curled into a snarl as she turned to the agent. She raised a bloody hand toward the lens just as the muzzle of a pistol appeared and its flash flung the Infected’s head backwards.

  Rick and Isabel exchanged a long, silent look each other’s way. Isabel could think of nothing to say to General Browner about the awful scenes of the Infected rampage.

  * * * *

  Denver was near the far northern end of Uninfected America. Their trip to Boulder had been to the true tip of civilization. All along the Interstate had been signs of fighting. It wasn’t as bad as their trip down the highway in upstate New York because most refugees from Boulder had made it south to safety. But the route was clearly held open only tenuously, and only with a major commitment of troops, whose attention—and guns—were ominously aimed into the fields and valleys just off the highway.

&n
bsp; “I know we’re not producing much vaccine in quantity,” said the head of the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “But the quality is excellent, and we’ve got studies under way that might show reduced rates of adverse reaction.” Isabel’s hopes had risen and she had asked if that meant fewer people would get infected by vaccination, but had crashed when the doctor made clear he was talking about a reduction in minor aches and injection site itching. Behind him had been a room full of professors and grad students in white lab coats. Isabel’s report to the NSC had been hopeful, filled with upbeat but under substantiated conclusions about the efficacy of small labs’ work on the vaccine. Rick hadn’t shown her his report about the cost of defending Boulder, but from his facial expressions when she asked she had guessed his conclusions weren’t as positive.

  They headed to the fifth floor of the army headquarters building, past another pupil and temperature check, and into a large conference room filling with soldiers, camo-clad civilians, and more men and women in lab coats. Most no longer wore masks. They, too, must have received the vaccine. Their acknowledging nods toward Isabel and Rick seemed more knowing. Greetings from other members of the club.

  The dim video on the screen at the front of the conference room was an aerial shot of some smoking, medium sized city. There were numbers and letters in the corner that changed constantly as the aircraft maneuvered, and a box in the center of the image in lieu of crosshairs. No one paid any attention to the desperate defenders of yet another Alamo.

  The video switched to General Browner and others taking seats in one room, and President Anderson in another box on the screen. “Okay,” the president said. “Reports?”

  What proceeded was an hour of anecdotes, with no big picture context. Lists of towns quarantined along the periphery of the Corridor, they called Texas-to-Colorado uninfected territory. Not a very inspiring name for a country. Lots of talk about a neck and shoulders that presumably made more sense if you were looking at a map. Albuquerque and Wichita had been lost. Santa Fe was long gone. Colorado Springs and Pueblo were holding, but with potentially unsustainable air support. Amarillo seemed to be the linchpin holding the whole shebang together. Isabel was wondering what kind of flag and anthem was appropriate for a Corridor when she heard her name.