Eden Plague - Latest Edition

by David VanDyke

  “There is no fool like an old, fool,” Miryam said affectionately, holding his hand in her lap. “If only you could see me, you will see how foolish you have become.”

  “But I can see you my dear. I can see you clear as the daylight coming in that porthole.” He reached out to touch her cheek. “I was blind, but now I see.”

  She marveled, holding his ancient face in wizened hands, suddenly grown strong.

  One deck above, Sergeant Jill Repeth, US Marine Corps, started the day as she always did, with a protein shake and one hundred pull-ups on a tension bar she had brought aboard and set up in the doorway of her room’s balcony. Facing out to sea looking over the railing, her head and shoulders rose and fell, eyes on the horizon. Her lungs expanded, pumping the fresh sea air in and out. It is great to be alive, she told herself. She believed it more today than on some other days.

  Every day above ground is a good day. Every day I am not being shot at is a good day.

  Repeth was one of the One Percent. It was something most Marines didn’t know about, because most marines weren’t female. Only a small fraction of the Corps was women, because unlike the other services, the Marines didn’t bend its physical standards to admit them. Measure up or leave.

  But the One Percent was a sort of secret club of female Marines that could, would and did beat the men at their own game – that could outperform most of them. Marathonners, triathletes, gymnasts, distance swimmers, biathletes. Thus One Percent, because perhaps one in a hundred Marine women could do it – could perform at this Olympic level of physical fitness.

  The cruise line had given her a private room on a middle-high deck, something she would have struggled to afford if she hadn’t been selected through their “Wounded Warriors” promotion that provided free cruises to the nation’s servicemembers. She was glad of it as she finished the hundred, hardly more winded at the end than at the start. She took that as a good sign, knocking out another fifty before stopping.

  That was more than she’d ever done before at a stretch. It was true she had an advantage over the average Marine, male or female; she was at least twenty pounds lighter than normal. Missing everything below both knees put less strain on the cardiovascular system; absent lower legs didn’t need blood and oxygen.

  Stay positive, stay focused. Ever since the mortar shell that took her feet, that’s what she told herself.

  She dropped gently to the floor onto her buttocks, maneuvering with wiry-muscled arms and leg stumps over to her prostheses. Sitting on the floor she strapped them on, fiddling and adjusting for a longer span than normal. Finally she got them to some semblance of stability, and wobbled to her artificial feet.

  She stared down at the legs and the metal-and-plastic structures. They didn’t feel right. Her good mood evaporated. Some days the damn things just didn’t sit well on her, and it looked like this would be one of these days. She wasn’t even going to turn on the microprocessor control and servos that helped her walk and run with a semblance of normalcy. She still hoped she could work up to running a marathon again. Maybe with those bladerunner things.

  She sat down on the bed and took the prostheses off, rubbing at the end of the stumps. They always itched a bit, but today they positively screamed to be scratched. She did so, vigorously, and then looked more closely at them. If she didn’t know better, she would swear that the stumps had lengthened slightly.

  Maybe they were just swollen.

  She shrugged to herself. Rather than fight with the artificial legs, she phoned for a wheelchair pick-up. She’d come back after breakfast and fiddle with the things. She was starving.

  Three decks above, in the crowded, well-lit breakfast cafeteria, nine-year-old Gennie Washington scooped spoonful after spoonful of yogurt into her mouth, finishing the bowl in record time. “More, please,” she requested.

  Her father Rufous gently patted the colorful knit Rasta hat that covered her bald head. “Anything else?”

  “Milk! And orange juice. And bacon.”

  “Coming right up, punkin.” Ever since her mother died, he couldn’t refuse her anything, not that he wanted to in this case. The chemo had been hard on her, and getting her to eat so well was a minor miracle. The cruise seemed to be good for her, to lift her spirits, and the oncologists all said that kids made the best cancer patients, because they had the best attitudes. Attitude was everything, as his football coaches had all drummed into him so long ago.

  He put a tray full of food down in front of his daughter and joyfully watched her eat. It was going to be a good day.

  ***

  “Time to get off the boat,” Larry said to Spooky as they heard the disembarkation announcement for Cancun over the public address system. “Between this guy,” he hooked a thumb at the closet where the taped and frightened staffer had spent an uncomfortable night, “and the commander you knocked out, they’ll be onto us soon.”

  “I’ll use his badge one more time to get off the ship,” Spooky said as he packed a shoulder bag. “We meet at El Gringo Loco.”

  Larry raised his eyebrows at Spooky. Actually they weren’t going anywhere near that bar; but the man in the closet would certainly pass this tidbit on to the authorities. He raised his own bag to his shoulder and the two men made their escape from the ship, Spooky from the staff and crew exit, Nightingale with the usual crowd of tourists heading in to the bars in Cancun.

  -23-

  Infection Day Minus Two.

  Binoculars brought the water treatment plant at Van Norman Lakes Reservoir into sharp focus. Daniel could see the enormous tubes of the termination of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Beyond it were hundreds of miles of pipes that gathered and funneled waters from the Sierras down to the Los Angeles Basin. It was a marvel of engineering, completely gravity operated, even generating hydroelectric power on the way. The devastation that the diversion of water caused Mono Lake and Owens Valley and many other, smaller natural Edens of California was deemed a cheap price to pay for keeping the economic powerhouse of the West Coast going.

  He shifted his view to the trees planted between the Granada Hills Youth Recreation Center and the enormous structures that prepared millions of gallons of water a day for Los Angeles thirsty residents to use. The stiff breeze’s direction was important; he had to choose a place upwind to maximize his chance of success.

  Not that he actually expected to succeed.

  He’d spotted the car tailing him ten minutes ago; figured he had another ten minutes before Homeland Security pulled him over and checked him out. He opened and drank as many canned protein shakes as he could. He choked down about seven.

  Homeland Security. Such a wonderfully loaded phrase. Nobody could possibly object to some nice security for the homeland, right? But it gave birth to dysfunctional abominations like the Transportation Security Administration, stealing iPads and patting down toddlers and detaining old people with colostomy bags while angry young underwear bombers were let through for fear of being politically incorrect. It led to trading away constitutional rights and responsibilities to those in power, in return for the comforting illusion of protection that no amount of armed security forces or foreign interventions could provide.

  He cut short his musings as he noted the wind direction was just blowing right for his ploy. He dialed a number on the disposable phone, put in a code, then tossed it out the window into a drainage ditch.

  Shoving the surplus agricultural spray truck in gear, he drove down the slope of the hill and along Balboa Boulevard. It was the last mile of his journey across seven states, trusting to anonymity and the millions of vehicles on the road to get him to his goal. But it didn’t really matter where or if he was intercepted; the design had been put in motion the moment he left the Sosthenes Bunker. It would be great if he could deploy the Plague into the water; but with or without him, the plan was going forward.

  The tail car started accelerating behind him, and he knew he was blown. They’d probably gotten a look at his face, despite his best effo
rts at concealment, and matched it against a biometric database. He sped up, taking the turn into the recreational complex in a skidding screech. He was just five hundred yards from his target section of the fence.

  He floored it, then reached over and threw a large lever under the dashboard. The mechanism in back of the truck, normally used for spraying a fine mist of agricultural chemicals in orchards or fields, coughed to life. In a moment a pale white fog trailed behind him, the stiff Santa Anna wind carrying it almost due west. Four hundred yards, he thought.

  The heavy government sedan behind him gained on his anemic truck despite the best he could do; it wasn’t long before he heard the impact of bullets. But five thousand gallons of Eden-Plague-infused solution protected his person from harm. Three hundred yards to go.

  Unfortunately the wheels were not so well covered. He felt one of the dual tires in the right rear go flat, and he steered gently, carefully, to avoid getting the liquid sloshing and so overturn the truck. Only two hundred yards now.

  The car roared up, trying to get alongside on the right, upwind of the mist. Daniel kept the speeding truck close to obstacles on that side – parked cars, fenceposts, curbs – preventing them from passing. One hundred yards.

  The truck shuddered and he felt the other right rear tire go. The vehicle settled on its suspension and he could barely control it, so he just kept his foot on the floor and aimed for the piece of fence that separated the sports complex from the water treatment plant’s eastern perimeter road. Strips of shredded rubber banged into the fender well, louder than the gunshots, and he prayed for speed as the barrier came up.

  He crashed through.

  He still had about thirty miles per hour going for him and was holding it as he roared along next to the enormous rectangular pools that held and distributed the water for treatment. He blessed the designers of the Eden Plague, as Elise had told him that the processing would not kill the virus. Even now, the mist was settling into the pools, contaminating Los Angeles’ main tap supply with the life-giving microbe.

  He’d almost made it to the end of the complex when he felt the tearing of a bullet in his shoulder and his right arm went numb. His vision blurred and the unstable truck yawed to the left, then rolled once and ground to a halt, breaking open the tough plastic solution tank. He felt the liquid slosh onto him.

  Moments later the legs of his pursuers walked into his line of vision. His head was stuck at an awkward angle, pressed against the ground and the remnants of the broken driver’s window of the truck. Dust and grit swirled over him, getting in his eyes, and he was sure his body was broken in several important places. He wondered whether the virus would knit his bones in this awkward position.

  He could hear the buzz of a helicopter getting closer. It didn’t matter. He’d done the job.

  “Should we get him out?” asked a voice attached to the legs.

  “They said not to touch him. He’s contaminated.”

  “This whole thing’s probably contaminated. Stay upwind. Besides, he can lie there and bleed for all I care. Scumbag terrorist. ”

  “Did they say what the stuff is?”

  “No, just some kind of chemical. Nothing too bad. I already called it in. They’re shutting down the plant until they can make sure the water is safe.”

  “High five, partner.”

  “Yep. Might get a commendation out of this one.”

  “We should.”

  The sound of the helicopter drowned out their conversation, though it barely added to the gritty wind. The legs walked out of his line of sight. He waited. It seemed like forever, but was probably just a few minutes. He drifted off in a fog of pain. This was good, because the gnawing hunger of the Eden Plague was coming back. He let himself go.

  Daniel awoke to the smell of plastic and his own bodily fluids. The world looked blue, but that was just the colored sheet covering his face. It was loose enough for him to breathe, but he couldn’t move. He was wrapped and taped. He could hear sounds of activity nearby, snippets of conversation and orders. It sounded like they were cleaning up the crashed truck. He felt himself being lifted. The motion told him that unfortunately he was right; pieces of him had healed into an unnatural configuration. His mind drifted to wondering if someday Elise and the rest would be able to adjust the virus to straighten out bones too.

  He heard a resonant, commanding voice rise from the babble. “Put him in the chopper.”

  Daniel laughed to himself, his mind seizing on irrelevancies. Nobody who actually lived and worked around helicopters called them “choppers.” Aircrew called them “airplanes” or “birds” or sometimes “helos,” or by their military designation – “Black Hawks” or “Sixties” or “Hueys.” Never “choppers.”

  Amateurs.

  They put him inside the running bird, which sounded to him like some kind of Sikorsky, probably a UH-60 Black Hawk. He was in the hands of the enemy, now, and in God’s, Cassie would say. He sure hoped she was right. He could use some God right now. Closing his eyes, he said a prayer, and let the pounding of the rotors lull him to sleep.

  ***

  It had taken five days for Nightingale and Nguyen to work their way back up through Mexico, eventually crossing using false documents at San Ysidro, the busiest border station in the US. Now they were checked into a nondescript motel in Mission Hills, California, eating free continental breakfast and watching the headline news.

  “Search and rescue forces of three nations were mobilized today as the cruise ship “Royal Neptune” was reported overdue to arrive at Port Canaveral, Florida from Bermuda. While the US Coast Guard cautions against speculation, the internet is already buzzing with talk of the latest victim of the Bermuda Triangle.”

  The two men turned to each other with ill-concealed horror.

  Larry downed his coffee. “Damn. DJ was right. They hijacked it, quarantined it,” he whispered.

  “Or sunk it to the bottom. The war, it is starting.”

  “I guess it is. So let’s go fight it.”

  They drove their rental car the mile or two to the north edge of the fence line surrounding the Van Norman water treatment plant. There was a communications conduit thirty yards inside the fence, where it ran from the main structure to a point where it dove into the ground. Beneath the earth, it would join and run alongside the enormous pipes of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, providing a secure fiber-optic link all the way up the pipeline. The line connected the whole system together, computers at each critical node – control valves, hydroelectric generators, pressure sensors – and the water treatment plant in front of them. But right here, it was exposed.

  Larry checked his watch. “Some time in the next hour, I’d say. You still think you can do it fast enough?”

  “As long as nobody shooting at me, I do it in under one minute. If they are, I do it even faster.”

  Larry shrugged, resigned. “Sure hope you’re right. This is gonna take some nice timing.” He stared at his phone.

  Seventeen minutes later the phone beeped and the go-code displayed.

  They immediately exited the car, walking up to the barrier. Larry worked heavy-duty wire shears along the cyclone fencing, making a hole within seconds big enough for Spooky.

  He slipped through with a tool bag in his hand, his eyes roaming over the concrete and steel facility. They were far away from any of the plant workers’ usual locations, and the fence line only got checked twice a day. Dropping to his knees next to the conduit, he took a battery-powered saw and sliced carefully through the thin conduit pipe. He peeled it away with pliers, exposing the fiber-optic lines within.

  With a few deft movements of his fingers he attached a clip-on shunt, which interposed itself into the line. Now, unknown to the plant managers, Spooky had access to the computer that ran the whole system. He pressed a button and the LED on the shunt started flashing. He slipped back across the hot dry dirt, through the fence, and into the car.

  The tiny flash drive in the device dumped the cyber
-worm Vinny had prepared into the line, where it burrowed its way in and immediately started taking over the system. Within two minutes the control computer, though otherwise unaffected, would ignore all commands to shut down water distribution. It would take tens of minutes or even hours to manually close valves and stop the contaminated liquid from flowing out into greater Los Angeles. By that time it would be too late.

  Larry put the sedan into reverse, backing into a position away from the fence but facing down the long perimeter road. “I know he said to leave right away, but I ain’t gonna miss this.”

  “It will not make us happy. We cannot interfere.”

  “I know.”

  So they had a front-row seat for the Daniel Markis road rally. They cheered as he started the sprayer and crashed through the fence; they pounded the dashboard as he cut off the pursuit and kept the mist going; they groaned when the truck rolled, and the helicopter landed. And they sweated as they watched the blue-wrapped bundle carried on a stretcher into the helicopter, both men wondering to themselves whether Markis was alive or dead.

  -24-

  Infection Day minus one.

  Elise Markis steered the bulk milk truck down the gravel track under the trees that line the little landing field outside of Athens, Georgia. She checked her watch. Ten minutes to go. She didn’t want to be too early; the less time sitting around, the less time for people to question her presence.

  She pulled the truck over before the rough road broke out of the tree line. She was at the downwind end of the runway. Hopping out of the cab, she made a final check of the hose, the pump, and the fittings.

  She looked up from her check as a single-engine, low-winged airplane roared overhead and landed lightly on balloon tires. It turned around and taxied toward her. She jumped back in the truck and drove out to the end of the runway, meeting the aircraft as it turned around and lined up for takeoff. As she pulled up, she looked over the plastic tanks, tubing and brass nozzles of the crop-duster.