Eden Plague - Latest Edition

by David VanDyke

  Elise’s mind whirled with shock. Near exhaustion, caffeinated and in the middle of the night, she was slow to react, slow to realize just what was going on. Her dull brain just had time to register the face-painted and heavily armed men bursting in before one of them charged her.

  She backed up in reflexive alarm, but not fast enough, and Daniel let his M4 fall to his side on its retractable sling to free up his hands, making the “shush” sign the whole time. Funny how most people obey emphatic, familiar signals, he thought.

  She stared stupidly at him with disbelief. Daniel? Finally she recognized him and relief flooded through her body. She had hoped and prayed that he would come for her and here he was.

  Daniel gently tackled her in a modified martial arts move he dredged out of his subconscious, which ended up with them both on the ground out of sight behind a big heavy lab bench. He covered her mouth with his hand and said into her ear, “Stay down, don’t interfere. This is a rescue.” He was so close he could smell her perfume, her skin.

  She nodded, her eyes wide. His arms felt strong around her. His body pressed against hers and the room began to spin. Is this real? “Daniel, thank God,” she breathed.

  He absorbed her big blue eyes, the splash of freckles across her nose, her auburn hair, and a delicate scent that made his mouth dry up like a lovestruck teenager. He started to get dizzy. Oh God please no. Not now. He had the weirdest feeling, like he had known her all his life and she had known him too, déjà vu times two. With an effort of will he pushed her and the feelings away and went back to the job.

  As he was turning back toward the door, gunfire exploded in the corridor.

  He saw Larry, framed in the doorway, open up with his AA-12. Shots roared out as he walked the gun from floor to ceiling, shooting at something down the corridor to the right. The recoil kept the barrel climbing up, up and then all the way over with his hand spasm-locked on the trigger.

  Time seemed to slow down with Daniel’s adrenaline surge, and he saw pieces of Larry’s armor blowing off in chunks as he got slammed by return fire. It was something big and heavy and deadly, because he saw Larry’s back plate lifted off his body and flap like a sail as something went all the way through him from the front.

  Larry! Daniel’s whole being launched forward like a Border Collie bolting for a frisbee, every reason for his existence condensed into one pure moment, driving for the goal. That Others May Live thundered in his head as he sprinted for the doorway.

  Fear seized Elise as she helplessly watched her rescuer, her – what, Elise, what is he to you? – charge toward danger. She saw the big man’s automatic shotgun stop firing and fall out of his hands, and then he crumpled to his knees, going down slow and heavy.

  Before the wounded man hit the floor she saw Daniel threw his body into the kill zone, between his comrade and the shooter. He wrapped his hands behind Larry’s neck, grabbing the carrying handle of his armor between his shoulder blades.

  Daniel felt a hot tearing burn in his thigh and then in his side below his ribs as bullets ripped through him. One round hit the SAPI plate in the center of his back and punched like a fist into his spine, but the armor held. At least they aren’t hitting Larry. Daniel ignored everything but the job.

  As soon as he had a grip he put up a foot against the opposite wall, pushing off of it like a gymnast. He threw his whole weight back through the doorway into the lab, dragging his wounded teammate with it and out of the line of fire. Daniel screamed with effort and pain. His leg was filled with liquid fire and his muscles burned.

  He scrabbled on the floor, dragging Larry backward like he was in a strongman competition. He frantically hauled and lifted and jerked almost four hundred pounds of gear and bloody dying man back behind a heavy lab bench. He dropped him, popped the quick-release on his ruck and pulled out his aid bag; he went to work, ignoring his own wounds and his suddenly acute need for food.

  Elise rushed to Daniel's side, thankful he was still alive. She felt queasy as she saw the blood pouring out of the bog man’s body.

  Zeke took the door position and yelled on the net, “Hostile, hostile, southwest corner room. Man down, man down. Skull, put a few rounds through the corner of the building.”

  Immediately they heard heavy, measured popping sounds begin, metallic and deadly, rifle rounds punching through the thin lab walls. They hoped Skull knew where he was aiming.

  Daniel glanced up over the bleeding mess to meet Elise’s eyes, kneeling there. She looked horrified to him. Nothing I can do about that now.

  He pulled out Gramps’ blade and she shrank back, but he ignored her and cut the body armor off of Larry. The knife sliced through the armor’s straps and seams and in ten seconds he had the man’s shell off in pieces. Daniel’s hands moved with the practiced speed of his younger days as he slid the pig-sticker back into its sheath and ran his hands over Larry’s body, searching for the trauma in his flesh. He would have to let the other three deal with the hostile if he was going to save Larry’s life.

  The worst injury was a sucking chest wound, front and back penetration. It looked like a large-caliber full metal jacket round, maybe coated with something to defeat armor, .50 caliber or .44 magnum. He cursed all fans of big-bore handguns as he grabbed Elise’s bare hand and put it against the bloody hole in Larry’s chest.

  “Pressure, hard, HERE.”

  She did as he told her, shaking tears out of her eyes, concentrating. I have to help him, she told herself, just don’t think about all the blood.

  Daniel rolled him onto his side to keep the fluid buildup in his lungs under control. Air wheezed in and out of the puncture in his back as his body struggled for breath. He needed to seal that up.

  By this time Zeke was squeezing off single shots left-handed in the doorway, firing down the corridor to the right, suppressing the hostile. With part of his mind Daniel heard the electric-chainsaw sound of Spooky’s P90, slim 5.7mm rounds shredding in short bursts like hail drumming on a steel rooftop. Then he heard a flash-bang go off, and Zeke moved out into the corridor. He and Spooky were assaulting the shooter.

  Daniel had unrolled his aid bag and was reaching for the tools of his trade when Elise leaned over and planted her mouth full on Larry’s. No time for smooching and no need for mouth-to-mouth ran through his head unbidden. His fingers slowed down as his disbelieving brain watched her lay the mother of all French kisses on Larry, like a drunk chick at a Saturday night meet-market. The uncomprehending part of him was suddenly jealous. He heard the snake giggle from somewhere deep inside.

  Elise lifted her head, coughing and retching, and he saw her expression, a mixture of horror and hope, as she wiped her mouth out with the sleeve of her lab coat and stared down at Larry. I hope it’s enough, she thought.

  Daniel wondered, was this an attempt to transfer the XH to Larry? It was the only thing that made sense.

  He had to put that question on hold along with many others as a tall cabinet in the corner behind Elise swung inward. It had hidden a door from the next room. A man stood thus revealed, a scarred man with a very, very large handgun in a shooter’s grip. It was Karl Rogett. He fired two more quick shots back into the room he was leaving and then turned toward Daniel – and Elise.

  Daniel dropped his right hand to his thigh where his trusty XD was holstered, drew and fired, double tap. Unfortunately the hard rubber bullets he had loaded stung and bruised the gunman but didn’t put him down. His experiment with nonlethal ammo had betrayed him, and he frantically pulled the trigger over and over, peppering the man with riot rounds at close range. One hit his face and tore a hole in his cheek, but the shots that bounced off his arms and chest did little but annoy him.

  The XD’s slide locked open and Daniel was out of ammo.

  Karl had been shielding his face with his raised arms, and began to bring his weapon back to shooting position. Daniel released his pistol, snapped his hand to the blade on his calf. He drew the knife with his fingertips and in one motion extended hi
s hand with a flip of the wrist. It was poor technique but he was very close, less than ten feet away. Gramps’ legacy turned end for end once. The razor-sharp tip of the blade punched right through the meaty part of the man’s left forearm, between the radius and ulna.

  Unfortunately he was right-handed. Rogett gritted his teeth and his right hand kept swinging that hand cannon in Daniel's direction, and he knew this was going to hurt. He prayed for God to save Larry and the XH to save him and surged to his feet to rush his enemy.

  But it was neither God nor XH, it was his own angel that saved him. Elise was closer and wasn’t carrying a load of gear. She bounced up and stepped in front of that damned murdering gunman and Daniel saw the explosion as the first round blasted through her shoulder upward, a spray of red that covered him in a fine mist. The bullet, slowed, thumped off his Kevlar helmet, staggering him.

  Elise screamed inside herself as the bullet passed through, but ignored the pain. I’ll heal, I’ve done it before. Have to stop him from shooting Daniel. No matter what, I can't lose him, not now.

  Karl fired the second and last round just as Elise got her hands on his weapon. It tore through her right upper arm, to plow into the wall somewhere off to their rear. Impossibly, she hung on to the big black automatic with a death-grip, preventing him from firing with her fingers jammed through the trigger guard, for just long enough.

  Daniel thought, What an amazing woman. If I wasn’t in love before, I sure am now.

  Karl struck her weakly, once, with his wounded left arm, Daniel’s knife still sticking out of it like some bizarre fashion accessory.

  Then Daniel had him.

  Without thought or planning his right hand had dropped to the pistol grip of the M4 hanging on its retractable sling and he lined it up between the man’s eyes. He didn’t fire, though, as he would have a few days ago, before his conscience started acting up, before the XH. Instead, he punched the weapon forward, driving the tip of the barrel into the big man’s forehead.

  Daniel had to hit the man twice more before he finally slumped and let go of his gun, wheezing on the floor. He kicked it aside. Desert Eagle, like he’d thought. He pulled his blade out of the gunman’s flesh, wiped it on his pants leg, and slid it back in its sheath.

  Elise slumped to the floor and tried not to the think about the excruciating pain in her limbs. Instead she concentrated on Daniel, just thankful he was alive, and that he would heal. The Plague would see to that. Her heart skipped a beat as she watched him ply his trade. Just then she saw Zeke came through the same secret door. He took in the scene and pulled out his zip cuffs again.

  “Double them,” Daniel said, turning back to Larry. “He’s one tough son of a bitch.” He was worried about Elise but the triage medic in his head made him work on the wounded man first. Compartmentalize and stitch. Besides, she had the XH and had survived worse.

  The irony was that the “worse” was something he himself had inflicted.

  Zeke dragged the hog-tied hostile out of their way. With the corner of his eye Daniel saw Elise sitting on the floor bleeding, propped against another lab counter, both arms hanging flaccid. “Zeke, can you look at her?”

  Zeke pushed his M4 back on his sling and knelt down to tend to Elise. She opened her eyes and smiled. “I’ll be all right. The Plague will heal me.” She lifted a shaky hand. “See? Getting better already.”

  Skull appeared in the lab doorway, having come to join the fight. He looked disappointed, until Zeke yelled, “You and Spooky clear the rest of the building.” He needn’t have shouted, since they were all still on the tactical link, but sometimes you do things in the heat of battle that don’t entirely make sense.

  “You guys all right?” Vinny broke in. He had been pretty restrained until now. Of course they had emphasized the importance of no chatter, but he finally couldn’t help himself.

  “Larry’s hit, but I think I got him.”

  But Daniel lied. Larry was bleeding out fast. The delay dealing with the last hostile had cost him, and he was racing to save the big man’s life.

  He made sure Larry's airway was clear, got plugs into the chest wounds front and back, and wrapped him tight and quick, putting him on the wounded side again to keep him from drowning in his own fluids. Then he slapped pressure bandages on the rest of Larry's wounds, the new type with the infused clotting agent. A large-bore IV of saline was next, into a vein. Daniel looked around for something to hang it on, and found Elise there.

  She grabbed the bag with her left hand and held it high. Her wounds had closed fast, much faster than he had expected. She smiled reassuringly, encouraging.

  His own remembered need for food, food to heal his wounds, cramped his gut, almost doubling him over. He grabbed his rucksack, opened one of the pockets to pull out a handful of protein bars. Ripping the wrapper off with bloody hands he held it out toward Elise’s face.

  Their eyes met, understanding passing between them.

  She grabbed the bar with her free hand and stuffed it in her mouth, chewing furiously. She moaned with pleasure, a sound that reached him somewhere below the belt.

  A part of him marveled at the human male’s ability to think about sex he hadn’t even had with someone he didn’t really know, even in the middle of a death struggle. Maybe because of the death struggle. Daniel dropped the rest of the bars on the floor within reach, then went back to treating Larry.

  He had got out another IV and was prepping whole blood when Elise asked, her mouth full, “You got dextrose?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s what he needs, more than blood.”

  That made no sense to his training, but something about her look convinced him she knew what was she was talking about. So he prepped dextrose instead and slid it into Larry’s femoral vein, the biggest available vessel in the body and the way to get it in him fastest. It drained rapidly through the short tube as Daniel held it up.

  Elise fed him a chunk of protein bar. He gobbled it from her fingers. It was unbelievably sensual, like that first taste of water in the parched desert. She fed him another, felt his mouth on her hand, wanted his mouth on her own mouth...

  “More,” he gasped, working between bites.

  She pushed her desire away, tried to concentrate on the problem at hand. The scientist within her said, It’s just the adrenaline and brush with death, supercharging my libido. The instinct to procreate, plus the Eden Plague. The woman within her said, I don’t care, I want him and he wants me.

  “Give him more dextrose,” she said, gesturing at the IV, trying to distract herself.

  “That would be too much. It could make him hyperglycemic. He could go into shock.”

  “No,” she disagreed. “The Eden Plague is taking hold of him already. Look, his wounds are closing. He just needs to be fed. Give him more, now.” Her tone brooked no argument.

  His mind’s eye flashed back to the bizarre lip-lock she had given Larry. That confirmed it. She had passed the XH, the…the Eden Plague she called it. Just like a bite, only a bit gentler. He was right, this stuff would put him out of a job. He didn’t have time to care about that right now. He switched out the empty for a full bag. “This is the last one of dextrose. Just whole blood and saline left.”

  “Wait,” she said. She stuffed one more piece of protein bar into Daniel’s mouth, then hung the saline drip on a drawer handle next to her. Standing up, she ran to the other side of the big laboratory, rummaging in a glass-fronted medical refrigerator. Larry looked like he was stabilized, breathing easier and not bleeding much.

  She came back with four one-liter IV bags of something nonstandard, a pale pink liquid Daniel didn’t recognize. It had “NS” handwritten on it in marker. “It’s a nutrient solution they use for the primates, when they do tests. It’s better than dextrose. It’s IV food in a bag. Only for Eden Plague carriers.”

  He waited for the last of the dextrose to drain, then switched the bags. The pink stuff started down the tube, and they knelt there, watching Lar
ry. After a moment Daniel felt her staring at him. He looked up into her shining blue eyes, confident for the moment that the Eden Plague was doing its work. Thank you, he mouthed to her silently.

  She blushed.

  “Larry’s gonna make it,” he said over the link, his voice hoarse. “Anyone else need medical attention?”

  “Neg.”

  “Negative.”

  “No.”

  “Excellent.” Because he wanted to keep staring into those azure orbs, to lose himself there. He wanted to do it forever.

  -13-

  Daniel opened up an MRE, Meal Ready-to-Eat standard field ration, started sharing it between himself and Elise. It was twelve hundred calories in a package about the size of a bag of potato chips, but they ate it all fast.

  Zeke gave Vinny a summary situation report, then came over to the rest of them. By then everyone was gathered around Larry, who seemed to be out of danger.

  Daniel thought about giving him a dose of morphine but decided against it. If Elise could deal with the pain of being shot, Larry could too.

  “We have to extract,” said Zeke urgently. “That last bastard had a radio and a phone in the security room there. No doubt he made some kind of a call. If they are brave and stupid they’ll react with their helo. If they are smarter, they will get together something we can’t handle. Either way, we don’t wanna hang around. Larry, can you move?”

  Larry’s eyes were open by then. He opened his mouth, coughed, and said, “Yeah, I think so. Hey, pretty lady.”

  Elise pressed her lips together in a wan tearful smile. “Hang in there. You’ll be fine now.”

  They helped Larry to his feet, leaving the shreds of his armor and most of his clothing in a bloody heap on the floor. Daniel handed him an MRE, then opened another one. Mmmm, chicken a la king. He could have eaten raw chicken at this point. He laughed to himself. Actually yes, I could. Salmonella is no threat anymore.