by Addison Gunn
THE RN BATTLESHIP had loaded three hundred sailors onto their Mk 10 transport and sent them to land at first light on the fifth day. Once they had cleared an area of wildlife and deemed it secure, the Mk 10 returned to the ship. It arrived again on land with two fully equipped Foxhound armored vehicles.
The Foxhounds, Britain’s solution to the IEDs from desert wars past, was a light-weight protected patrol van—smaller than most mine and ambush resistance vehicles, but larger than a Humvee or a Bravo. The plan was to house the RN commander in the frontmost Foxhound, and Miller and Cobalt would take up the second in the rear. Each vehicle could hold up to six passengers.
From the Tevatnoa they’d rustled together almost a thousand S-Y security troops, some who hadn’t seen battle since the evacuation of the Astoria Peninsula almost a year before. Armed with L85A2 assault rifles provided by the RN, another thousand civilians from the Princess Penelope had volunteered for the operation—men and women. All were transported to land via the mega-lifeboats and then taken into the RN’s command.
Leading the troops, to Miller’s utter shock, was the captain’s assistant, Sarah Clark.
“Don’t look so stricken, Miller,” she said, after seeing his expression. She climbed into the passenger side of the front Foxhound cab. “I was a major in the Royal Marines before I set sail with the RN.”
“I’m not stricken,” Miller said.
“Look at you. Would you rather have had the commander?”
Miller frowned.
“I thought not.”
“You mistake me,” Miller said. “Your mission entails engaging in front line combat with the whole of the Infected United States Army. My concern is that you’re too valuable to lose—and Cobalt will be unable to help you once we have the laboratory staff and research in tow.”
“I understand the risks,” Clark said. “I’m not looking to die anytime soon. We’ll distract them enough for you to get in and out—then we roll. There are over two thousand humans under my command and we’ve become an endangered species. I don’t want any more loss of life than is necessary.”
“Don’t wait for us, if it comes to that,” Miller said. “My team has been in scrapes like this before. We’ll find a way back to the ship somehow.”
“Just get to the rendezvous point,” Clark said. “Let me do the rest.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Clark slammed the door and nodded to the driver. With the roar of the engine the armored car thundered to life and rolled forward.
At the tip of the Dundee Natural Environment Area sat the sunken remains of two separate plant nurseries. With Clark on point, the troops in the center, and Cobalt driving the second Foxhound at the rear, the small army travelled up the central road on the peninsula, then hooked a left onto a two-lane highway, leading west. After passing a church to the south, they marched barely five kilometers before all hell broke loose.
To their north, a wooded area loomed. Clark, with her RN troops just behind, had passed under the 43 overpass when the trees on the right rattled and groaned from within.
From his vantage point in the driver’s seat of the Foxhound, all Miller could see was rustling trees and branches. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn the forest had come alive and was moving forward to protest their presence in Baltimore; but the truth was much worse.
A wild pack of bird-like dogs came bounding out of the woods. They were chasing a small herd of thug-behemoths—four adults and one calf—who were barrelling toward the civilian militia at neck-break speed.
Like an avalanche, the behemoths ploughed through the center of the group, scattering and trampling anyone too slow to get out of the way.
Once the behemoths were across the highway, the dogs followed: perhaps five or six of them, by Miller’s estimation.
“What the fuck are those?” Doyle asked from the passenger seat.
The salamander-esque predators had a ridge of hair up their spines. They slunk around the evading behemoth herd, encircling them, following them south.
“I’ve heard of them, but never seen one,” Hsiung said, talking over Doyle’s shoulder while peering through her binoculars at the carnage. “I think they call them husk-mutts.”
One mutt deviated from formation—distracted by the pack of humans so readily available for chomping. It pounced on a man, grabbed him by the throat and attempted to drag him away. The beast got only a few meters before one of the civilians had the good sense to shoot it.
“Braiser cette merde,” du Trieux swore.
Clark, who had swung around in her Foxhound, hung out the passenger side window and shouted orders at her RN troops to intervene. They encircled the civilians, closed ranks and then tended the wounded.
The entire ordeal had taken less than five minutes. Miller and Cobalt, at the far end, could do nothing but watch and wait as the RN took care of the injured, removed the dead from the road, and moved on. The herd had moved south and then east, by Miller’s estimation, but who knew where they would be headed next? It was best to get out of the way as fast as possible.
When they reached Interstate 95, Clark led the troops straight, toward downtown, while Miller and the Cobalt Foxhound turned right and headed north up the 95.
“See you on the other side,” Clark said, before cutting communications.
Miller switched off the Foxhound CB and tapped the com-link in his ear. “This is where the fun begins.”
31
SAM PRESSED HER foot against the accelerator and gritted her teeth. They were mere minutes from Baltimore. Somehow, she had to convince almost a hundred people to betray their own kind and facilitate obtaining the very substance that could make them lose the core of their identity. It was going to be a hard—an impossible—sell. Her first thought was to pulse something through the group—she was the only Bishop left among them, after all, and they would be powerless to resist her. But she remained conflicted on which feeling would get her what she wanted.
She considered giving an inspirational speech—some sort of rip-roaring Henry the Fifth we-band-of-brothers oration—but she felt more like Brutus from Julius Caesar than any sort of inspiring king.
The closer she got to the Johns Hopkins, the more her hands sweated and her heart raced. Her nervousness seemed to rub off on the others: the thirty or so Infected crammed into the back of the truck were restless. They snapped at each other and picked fights of the dumbest sort, over legs touching or loud breathing. There were ten more people in the transport than it was designed for; of course they were uncomfortable. Still, Samantha couldn’t help but wonder if her own emotions weren’t influencing the masses.
Ahead, Interstate 83 was wide open. They passed the 695 and what was once the Johns Hopkins University—not the medical school—without another soul in sight. There was the occasional abandoned car, and evidence of communes and human settlements could be seen in the campfires and occasional glimpses of movement, but for the most part, the outskirts of Baltimore looked deserted.
Had there been some sort of war here, like in NYC? Where the hell was everyone?
“Here we go again,” said a voice over the CB.
Sam shot a quick look into her side mirror and spotted the issue. The third truck’s radiator was steaming. The sun was high in the sky. The temperature had easily hit the low hundreds. Away from the snow of the mountains, the ground baked and the sky seared. It was no wonder the transport had only lasted a few hours.
Sam snatched up the dangling receiver. “Ok, pull off at the next exit. We’ll lay low until tonight.”
“Seems a shame,” Binh said over the CB. “We’ve come so far. We’ve got to be close. Shouldn’t we just keep on until it dies?”
“It’s best if we get a lay of the land and assess the situation before we drive into a battle.”
“Good point,” Binh said, pulling off at the next ramp.
The ramp banked to the right, passed a sludgy lake on one side, a residential street on the other.
That was exactly what Sam didn’t want. “Keep going. I see what looks like a power plant? Next to a basketball court. Just ahead.”
“Why there?”
“Parts for the van, of course,” Sam said, shaking her head. Her logic was sketchy at best. If Binh put up even the slightest hint of resistance she would have a problem, but luckily, he didn’t.
“I see it,” he said.
“Make this fast,” said the woman driving the third truck. “The gauge is on the H. The truck is going to catch fire if we push too much farther.”
Sam shifted her transport down into second gear and prepared to slow. “Copy that.”
They pulled into the complex and spilled out of the transport vehicles. The facility, some sort of government maintenance building, was surrounded by a tall concrete wall and enclosed by a metal rolling gate. Perfect for Samantha’s needs.
“Set up camp here,” Sam instructed Binh. “Search for supplies and fill up the truck’s radiator again.”
“Wait, what are you doing?”
Sam crawled back into the cab of her empty transport and re-started the engine. “Don’t commune with any other Infected until I figure out what’s happening. Binh, you’re in charge until I get back.”
This idea seemed to horrify him. “You’re not going out there alone! What about predators? What about humans?”
Sam gave a small nod. “There’s a lot to be said for being sneaky,” she said. “Everything will be fine.”
“We go together, or not at all,” Binh insisted.
Sam had to appreciate his loyalty. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was evolving into a Bishop, but all thoughts of that were put to rest the moment she placed a hand on his shoulder and pumped him full of tranquillity. His entire face relaxed and he yawned, covering his wide mouth with his palm.
“Stay here. This won’t take long,” she said.
From the maintenance yard, Sam drove back out onto the highway, then exited off Oliver, heading south, and then turned east. She took Preston St. past a cemetery—completely overrun with goliath-brutes grazing on the overgrown weeds—and through a residential area—crawling with communes as far as the eye could see. She then took Wolfe Street south.
That was when she saw them.
She had noted during her drive that there were no military aircraft in the skies. No fighter jet fly-bys, no combat helicopters searching the area with spotlights. In fact, she’d begun to doubt the United States military was still there at all, until she noticed a giant tank roll by, south of her position off Wolfe.
After parking the transport and locking it tight, she proceeded on foot. As she neared the corner of Wolfe and Madison, she came to a complete stop and hid behind a row of abandoned cars parked along the fungus-covered curbs.
There wasn’t just the one tank, but four. One was parked at each corner, as far as she could tell, surrounding an entire block to her left. Three buildings, linked by glass walkways, straddled the junction. A temporary barrier of wooden pylons and barbed wire ran down the center of the boulevard, manned by soldiers in full-blown tactical gear—helmets, goggles, assault rifles, the works. They paced back and forth on either side of the pylons in five-minute intervals.
After sitting and watching for a good half hour, she came to the conclusion that this was not an active military operation. In all likelihood, the formula from the research facility was already gone. What she saw here was a battalion of guards holding a position—and probably waiting to catch some fool trying to infiltrate it.
With no desire to be that fool, Sam waited for a break in the patrol, then crossed the street behind the parked cars. Just south, and down a barricaded dark alleyway, there was another entrance to the last of the three buildings that lined the city block. The door was chained shut, and more pylons and barbed-wire stood in the way, but it wasn’t anything a pair of bolt cutters, a hundred or so people, and a little luck couldn’t remedy.
Inside the facility, perhaps she could still find an old hard drive, a sample of the formula, or research papers—anything left behind. She had not come all this way to not look, and she would never forgive herself if she slunk away like a dog with her tail between her legs just because it looked difficult.
After driving back to the maintenance facility where she had left Binh and the others, she listened to their list of finds: some tools, one can of diesel fuel, a lot of electrical wire and gas meters, and about three hundred neon orange vests.
“There wouldn’t by chance be any wire cutters in that pile of tools, would there?” she asked.
Binh pursed his lips and shrugged. “Yeah, I think there are a few.”
Sam smiled and fought the urge to rub her palms together. “Excellent.”
AT DAWN THE next morning, Sam instructed Binh to get the group ready.
“We need to know what’s going on, what the U.S. troops have in there,” she said. “I propose we break into the facility and find any evidence of the research by ourselves.”
“Why don’t we just send someone to ask the troops if they have the research?” Binh suggested. “Like an envoy, of sorts. They’re Infected, aren’t they? We’re on the same side.”
If Sam were actually interested in finding that out, it would have been a good suggestion. She shook her head. “It could be a trap. We can’t risk a single life until we know for sure that they’re with us.”
She cleared her throat. “There’s an alleyway that leads directly into the research facility. We have to get through a patrol, a pylon barrier, and a lot of barbed wire, but even so, it’s our best bet. Have your weapons ready, and do not hesitate to shoot the soldiers if they try and stop us.”
“All this could be avoided,” Binh said, “if we just contacted—”
“This is for the best,” Sam said, placing a hand on Binh’s arm.
He blinked slowly, then said, “All right.”
Samantha led the small army down to the intersection she’d found the previous day. She broke them into groups of ten, sticking to the shadows and skirting the patrols behind the cover of the abandoned, fungus-draped cars still lining the curbs. It took a bit of time, but once she had them safely inside the alley, she set them to work in getting through the pylons and the barbed wire. Sam and Binh waited in a stairwell across the way as they worked.
Perhaps it would be faster if they sent someone back for one of the transport trucks, and they crashed their way into the door? But the entry was on a raised platform—it was unlikely the transport could make the jump—and the idea of sneaking a transport by the battalion was laughable. They were lucky to have snuck past them as it was.
“Shit. We have incoming,” Binh said, pointing down the alleyway.
Sam squinted into the dark tunnel; down the way—approaching in a two-by-three combat formation—were five soldiers. Unlike the others, in their full black tactical armor, they didn’t wear helmets, and looked a bit the worse for the wear. One had his leg in an exo-brace and walked with a slight limp. Another of them, a woman with dark skin and a silent step, glared about her surroundings with a ferocious scowl. A shorter, angrier woman cautiously walked next to a tall, lanky Caucasian man, who in turn looked around as if confused.
At the sight of the fifth soldier, Sam’s breath caught in her throat.
“Hold on,” she said to Binh. “I know these guys.”
There was no denying the swagger of the man on point, or the closely cropped brown hair and the weathered, sharp jawline. Samantha had to fight to keep herself from calling out to him. She stood up.
Binh looked horrified. “What are you doing?”
“I worked with these humans in New York City. We can work this to our advantage.”
“They’re human?” he whispered harshly.
“These aren’t your typical humans, Binh. You’ll ha
ve to trust me.”
“They’ve seen us. Shit, there’s a laser pointer. Get down!” Binh shouted.
The whole of the Infected band followed Binh to the asphalt and cover—all but Samantha. Instead, she stepped forward and walked into the middle of the alleyway. She kept her face expressionless, her posture confident and assured. Her heart pounded in her chest like a jackhammer.
At the sight of her, Cobalt took cover behind a concrete stairwell farther on the opposite end of the alley. The one with the brace aimed a sniper rifle at Sam’s chest. She looked down at the red laser dot over her sternum. Only Alex remained in the middle of the road.
Sam continued her walk toward him, her boots echoing off the concrete walls. She saw the moment he recognized her. Despite himself, a smile crossed his lips.
Sam felt her face warm. She stopped and met Alex midway. His smile fell as he got closer—damn, she must look like shit. Come to think of it, so did he.
She tried to keep her voice light, her posture unassuming. When he got within earshot, she cleared her throat and said, “Fancy meeting you here.”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be damned.”
32
“HOLD YOUR FIRE!” Miller said, bringing his fist over his head.
The red laser danced across Samantha’s chest, then disappeared. She swallowed thickly, and then, to Miller’s astonishment, laughed.
Her amusement spread across her group like the embers of a forest fire. Soon, the Infected were all eerily cackling from their pathetic cover positions in the alley behind her. One man, a young fellow of Korean descent, stood and pointed to Sam as if they shared in some hysterical private joke.
Miller’s face grew hot.
Samantha shot a weary look over her shoulder at the boy and rolled her eyes. When her merriment burned out, so did the others.
Behind Miller in the enclave of the alley, du Trieux coughed; the sound echoed off the silent concrete walls.
“I should have known you’d show up,” Samantha said, putting a hand on her bony hip. She’d changed dramatically since last he’d seen her. Before, she’d been terribly thin, even gaunt; now, she looked starved. Deep hollows lined her mouth and under her eyes. Her skin hung off her like shredded fabric. As before, her once long, full hair was tied back into a loose braid, but it looked as if chunks of it were missing. Samantha shook her head at Miller with a bemused grin. “You’re like the sick punch line to a bad joke.”
