Islands of Rage and Hope (eARC)

by John Ringo

  A short shot of Cody's funeral at sea as the song died with the caption "Specialist Cody 'Anarchy' Smith, U.S. Army, KIA, Canary Islands Operating Area."

  She wasn't sure if "eaten by sharks" was technically Killed in Action but she wasn't going to bitch. She still missed him.

  Then the song she'd been wondering if they'd use: Nightwish's "Last Ride of the Day" as the "Manning number" kept clicking up and up.

  Machine shops and unrepping and people cleaning out the Boadicea. Ripping up carpet, just like she and Da and Faith had done so many months ago. Clearing out the skeletons "Da's Little Helpers" left of the bodies. Vacuuming those up. Scrubbing bulkheads and floors. Cleaner mattresses coming aboard from salvage. People working in galleys and engine rooms and the main saloon filled with people. People boarding the Social Alpha off a Zodiac. Squadron ops with civilians and military manning radios and computers. Tracers at night. Dinner in one of the mess halls. A swarm of Marines going up a boarding ladder into a ship. A shot of a full flotilla heading to sea, the boats nose up and crashing through the waves. Nurses helping survivors that were on death's door. Loading the battle boxes on a gunboat, case after case of .50 caliber ammo coming out of the hold of the converted fishing boat. More chewed infected on a beach with the video focusing on the cloud of brass pouring out of the new water-cooled dual .50s. Coiling down ropes. Grapnels going over to a derelict boat. A group of Marines holding a line against a mass of infected somewhere in the Canaries. Faith was standing behind them apparently buffing her nails. A team working on a stripped-down engine in an engine room. A sewing shop she didn't even know they had. More survivors over transoms. The market in "Downtown" on the Boadicea. A shot of her, Sophia, in the pass in review, saluting Da. A Zodiac sporting a tiny Irish flag crewed by what looked like a child outbound into the setting sun. Gunboats chewing up infected in a marina with Zodiacs inbound for the beach. Faith in combat rig, striding past a group of rigged up Marines, the girl's face like an axe, returning their salutes as if she'd done it a thousand times. The pass in review, making it look much more professional than it had actually been. The full squadron heading out to sea with Mount Teide glowing red in the background.

  Then back to the dark sky of a dead world. A satellite passing over India and North Africa. Shots of dead Mumbai, Cairo, Casablanca, scrolling fast...

  Zooming in on a cluster of lights. The squadron center at sea. The only light in the blackness as the music crescendoed. Then a caption:

  "Welcome to Wolf Squadron. The hell with the darkness. Light a Candle."

  At the bottom was "Manning: 3,201."

  Sophia realized she'd used up all the tissues. And all she wanted to do was go back to the boat and head back out to sea.

  "Mr. Walker," Steve said, gesturing to the chairs in his office. "Sophia."

  "Captain," Sophia said, sitting down.

  Sophia had gotten the word that she had to "meet with the squadron commander" before the division headed back out for operations.

  "This is more of a 'Sophia' and 'Da' conversation," Steve said.

  "Have I done something wrong?" Sophia asked.

  "If you had, it would be a captain and ensign conversation," Steve said. "And, frankly, I think the real answer is that people will be...conflicted about that. It's time we talked about vaccine production with the powers-that-be."

  "Fuck," Sophia said quietly, lowering her head.

  "I am somewhat out of my depth, sir," Walker said, looking back and forth. He thought for a moment, then looked at Sophia. "Seriously?"

  "I was told you were quick on the uptake," Steve said.

  "Somebody had to do it," Sophia said, shrugging. "Better me than Faith."

  "I'm still unsure that it needed to be or should have been my fifteen-year-old daughter," Steve said. "But you are the only thing we have close to an expert. We haven't even picked up any biology laboratory technicians."

  "I barely counted as one of those, Da," Sophia said. "And I'm really hoping that I'm not going to be stuck in a lab making vaccine until who knows when."

  "You won't be," Steve said. "We've found people with...well about the same background as you had when you started working for Doctor...Damn, what was his...?"

  "Curry," Sophia said. "Doctor David 'What is it about Mad Scientist you don't understand?' Curry."

  "Do I have a purpose here, sir?" Walker asked.

  "I suppose that is up to you, Mr. Walker," Steve said. "I have some people who are generally capable of managing a lab. I don't, sorry, consider one of those people to be Sophia. On the other hand, I've been given the impression that you have some abilities over and above tying knots. And, frankly, the ensign is going to need someone..."

  "As emotional support when it becomes common knowledge that Seawolf the Hero started out working in a clandestine human chop shop?" Walker said.

  "That. Yes. Although for now that will continue to remain confidential."

  "I'll be okay, Da," Sophia said. She didn't look okay.

  "You will be eventually," Steve said. "Because this will eventually become sort of 'well, that's how it works.' And, note, we're going to have to vaccinate all the babies we're about to have. They won't automatically be immune to H7D3."

  "I hope somebody has some clue about that because I'm totally clueless and I don't want to kill a baby," Sophia said.

  "Mr. Walker, will you admit to some knowledge of this field?" Steve said.

  "Honestly?" Walker said. "I passed the Special Forces Medical course, if that's what you're asking. I haven't been in anything resembling a biology lab in thirty years. And even then it was a very brief course on analyzing medical complaints under field conditions."

  "So I was right," Sophia said, brightening. "You were Special Forces!"

  "Yes, I was," Walker said. "Am, for certain values. You're never ex-Special Forces unless you get thrown out. In fact, technically, I'm still a member of the U.S. Armed Forces."

  "Whatever you're willing to admit to, that brings up an entirely separate issue," Steve said. "We are about to have a baby boom. Lieutenant Fontana is a graduate of the same course. You and he are, in fact, our best trained people at, well, everything medical. Our one trained nurse worked her whole career in a doc-in-a-box. And even then she was mostly a triage and taking blood pressure type."

  "Special Forces medics are not doctors, sir," Walker said. "We're very clear about that."

  "There are no doctors, Mr. Walker," Steve replied. "The only known MDs in the world are in a hole at the CDC. When in the fullness of time we retake the Atlanta area they will be mobile. In the meantime, we have no doctors nor nurses nor any of the rest."

  "Checked the islands, sir?" Walker said.

  "Which ones?" Steve asked.

  "Most of them," Walker said. "There were little medical schools all over the Caribbean, sir. I'd be unsurprised if some of the instructors didn't survive. Even the advanced students would be useful."

  "That is...interesting," Steve said. "And something no one else had brought up. But it is not germane to the current discussion. I'm aware that I cannot order you to do anything, Mr. Walker. Both because you insist you are a civilian and, from what I can surmise, if you did 'blow your cover' I'd be outranked."

  "Really?" Sophia said.

  "That is not to be discussed, Ensign," Steve said. "But we need medical personnel desperately. Both for the vaccine program and for the approaching baby boom. Would you be willing to temporarily suspend your cruise to assist?"

  "You don't need to sweat it, Captain," Walker said. "I was planning on bringing it up. Just wasn't sure when was appropriate. I am at your service in this matter. Both to help set up the lab and as a baby doctor."

  "Thank you," Steve said. "You are hereby the lab manager for the initial vaccine production. Sophia is in charge of the lab, you manage it. Does that work?"

  "Absolutely," Walker said. "And as soon as we get it up and running, and someone else to manage it and run it, I'll segue over to baby doctor. I'd
appreciate a brush up with the doctors at the CDC."

  "You can feel free to schedule that for yourself and Fontana," Steve said. "You'll both be talking with them extensively. I'm going to pull Fontana off of running Marines and put him in charge of setting up the facilities for pregnancies involving medical emergencies. Nurse Fallon is already getting swamped with late-term complications. So...Sophia, are you ready to break cover? At least with the Powers-That-Be?"

  "What's that thing that Lee said at Appomattox? I would rather die a thousand deaths. Ready."

  Steve clicked something with his mouse and nodded at the screen on his computer.

  "Sorry to keep you waiting, Dr. Dobson," Steve said. "As has been discussed, one of my original crew had experience working in a professional if clandestine laboratory that produced attenuated vaccine prior to the breakdown in civil order. NCCC Galloway, we have assurances that there will be no legal repercussions from your office."

  "None," Galloway said. The National Constitutional Continuity Coordinator, functionally the Acting President, was formerly the Under Secretary for Under Deputy Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Arms Proliferation Control. He was one of many civilian appointees rotated through secure points in the event of a disaster like, laughably, a zombie apocalypse. The point was to have a civilian, preferably someone elected or approved by Congress in charge of the military and nuclear release codes. He was number one hundred and twenty-six on the very long list. "You have the documents as well as my personal assurances."

  "Very well," Steve said, touching another control. The conference came up on the large plasma behind his desk. "Ladies and gentlemen, my daughter Ensign Sophia Smith."

  "Sophia?" General Brice said, startled. "Seawolf?"

  "Somebody had to do it, ma'am," Sophia said, her face tight. "I won't say I'm glad or anything, but if we hadn't we'd have been in the same boat as the Lawtons and the subs. Even if we didn't get the Plague."

  "And the other gentlemen is...?" Dr. Dobson said.

  "Thomas Walker," Steve said. "He is a former SF medic who has management experience as well as some slight lab experience. He knows a Bunsen burner from a test tube anyway. He will be managing the lab."

  "Sophia," Dr. Dobson said. "Since there is a blanket pardon in place for all persons involved in the vaccine production you were involved in, could you give us a few more details, please?"

  "The lab was for Bank of the Americas," Sophia said. "It was run by Dr. David Curry..."

  "I could see Dave doing that," Dobson said, grinning mirthlessly.

  "I...saw many of the CDC teleconferences when the Plague was spreading," Sophia said. "Dr. Curry kept it running in both the hot and cold zones. So I recognize you, sir. My job was most of the processing. Dr. Curry would...do initial preparation of the materials. It was the one bit I wasn't willing to do."

  "Initial preparation?" General Brice said. "Sorry but we're going to have to approve this for use by the sub crews. We need to have some idea of what exactly is going on."

  "Grinding up the spinal cords," Sophia said tightly. "They would be brought in by..." She stopped and looked at her dad.

  "My brother Thomas Smith was General Manager for Security and Emergency Response for Bank of the Americas," Steve said. "Tom's teams, covering as one of the standard contract Biological Emergency Response Teams, would find infected, secure and terminate, strip the spines and deliver them to the lab."

  "I see," General Brice said. "Go on, Ensign."

  "Dr. Curry would do that part of the preparation. It isn't tough except emotionally. Drop the spinal cords in a blender and hit blend."

  "Okay," Secretary Galloway said, twitching slightly.

  "Then he would give me the materials for processing. Centrifuge until the layers are separated. Remove the liquid containing the virus bodies using a pipette. Separate using a medium, which is the most time intensive part. Also..."tedious" doesn't begin to describe it. It's like watching paint dry except you have to actually pay attention to it. Measure an exact volume of virus bodies into containers. You can use glass test tubes for that but we used disposable ones. Calculate the X-ray charge for that volume depending on whether it was primer or booster. X-ray with the specified output and time. Remove the irradiated virus bodies and place precise quantities in vaccine containers. Mix with specific levels of deionized water. Then there's quality control. When we started, Dr. Curry would test it with reagents, I'm not even sure what kind, then double check with the SEM..."

  "Sem?" Galloway asked.

  "Scanning electron microscope," Dr. Dobson said. "According to your records, there's one at the immunology lab at Guantanamo. May or may not be working. On the other hand, there's a way to make one that's not too hard. According to Commander Freeman, a nuclear engineering specialist would find it child's play. Ditto the mass spectrometer they're going to need. And we know what the reagents were. That's different from them being available. What about a vaccine test kit?"

  "They had those in New York," Sophia said uncomfortably. "That's what he switched to when they came out."

  "Vaccine test kit?" Galloway said. "Again, what?"

  "When vaccines suddenly hit the street, there was only one source," Dobson said, just as uncomfortably as Sophia. "Which at the time was classified as first degree murder with bells and whistles. What we are now planning on doing in job lots."

  "Agreed and understood," the NCCC said. "On the other hand, we're already killing the infected in job lots. Might as well put them to some use. Callous? Yes. Necessary, also yes. We've had the discussion."

  "The point is, sir, if I may," Sophia said, gulping, "street dealers were offering vaccine. Sometimes it was just distilled water. Say one of them gets busted. What is he actually carrying? Remains of a person who was murdered or just water? One is a con, the other is conspiracy to murder. So they came out with small test kits for 'street vaccine.' Cop busts a guy with what looks like vials of water, tests it, it's vaccine, he busts him for possession plus they start capital murder charges."

  "Ah," Galloway said, nodding. "Makes sense."

  "I was sort of there on the sharp end, sir," Sophia said. "I spent a good part of the time in New York terrified somebody would burn us and I'd end up in prison. I knew the Fall was coming. I did not want to be in prison when it hit. Thing is, the tests were cheap, mass produced, and they actually were accurate enough to tell if the vaccine was good or not. Not only could they tell if it was good, they could determine if it was good primer or booster and even whether it was from a human or another 'higher order primate.' Just inject a few drops into the plastic thingy and it gave you a response in a few seconds. So then the dealers and people who wanted to buy vaccine on the street started buying them. They were selling over the counter in New York before the Fall. We're going to need more than the X-ray generator. We've found those. What we really could use, for quality control, is some vaccine test kits. Not to mention graduated pipettes, tips, syringes...And separation medium. That's going to be hard to find. There's a lot of material besides an X-ray generator."

  "According to our records Gitmo should have all of it," Commander Freeman said.

  "Then I guess we need to take Guantanamo Bay, sirs, ma'am," Sophia said, shrugging. "If it's as well stocked as indicated, I can get the lab up and running in a day or so. And then we can start taking poor deranged Marines, sailors and civilians and turning them into vaccine," she ended, a tad bitterly.

  "Ensign Smith," the NCCC said. "I want you to know that whatever your feelings in this matter, this will not be held against you legally in any way. And for myself, personally, thank God you did do what you did, didn't get caught and are going to do again. It is, literally, the salvation of humanity. Hole is out."

  "Anything we can provide on this end at this time, Ensign?" Dr. Dobson said.

  "Prayer?" Sophia said. "I'll get back to you when we're getting the lab set up."

  CHAPTER 6

  "...got into Powderhorn on my sled and picked up some s
upplies from the Meijers yesterday. Any closer to downtown and the zombies are still crawlin'. Lots of them, by golly. How in tarnation are they survivin'? It's been a little cold don'tcha know..."

  From: Collected Radio Transmissions of The Fall

  University of the South Press 2053

  "Another fine day at Guantanamo Bay, Sergeant!" Hoag said as she popped her head up through the roof hatch.

  It was dawn and changing of the guard at Building Fourteen Survival Center, Gitmo. A constant watch was maintained on the rooftop. Nobody was, at this point, absolutely sure why. While the infected level had dropped, it hadn't dropped enough for them to get out. Not nearly enough ammo. And there was, so far, no sign of any relief.

  "Another glorious day in the Corps, Sergeant!" Sergeant Andy Weisskopf replied.

  "Any change in the infected status, Sergeant?" Hoag asked.

  "Infected count for the night was sixty-seven, Sergeant," Weisskopf said. "All but three were known infected. Al Hoodat managed to run down a previously unidentified and unknown female and have his way with her. He also killed her in the process and a great feast was had by all. Other than that, no major incidents."

  "Ah, zombie snuff porn," Hoag said. "The highlight of any watch. I relieve you, Sergeant."

  "I stand relieved, Sergeant," Sergeant Weisskopf said.

  "Flag party coming through," Staff Sergeant Cindy Barnard said, coming through the hatch. "You two yardbirds want to get out of the way?"

  "Aye, aye, Staff Sergeant," Hoag said, stepping aside as the flag party came up on the roof.

  When General Zick had "turned," overall command had devolved to Colonel Hamilton. As far as anyone could tell, the colonel was the commander of Gitmo. A such, the flag was raised on Building Fourteen instead of on Eighteen. Eighteen was in sight and still holding out as well. They were mounting their guards. Mostly Navy but they were there at least. When the radios ran out they'd resorted to flag signaling and writing reports or orders on a white board and holding it up to be read. The flag signaling was tough at first--they had to get the instructions via white board--but there was a signals ET over in Eighteen who knew it. They'd learned. They'd also learned international light signaling since using a mirror was generally quicker than flags and you could use lights at night. There was, in fact, a fairly regular conversation going on between the two buildings.