The Reaper Plague

by David VanDyke

As soon as the addicted ones had been herded out, the Army troops moved back in, warily watching as a military medical team tested the remaining personnel. Before they finished, General Tyler went to see the President. He had a report to make, and he’d heard that President McKenna had a new assignment for him.

  And retirement orders.

  Not surprising. From his point of view, I have too much power. It has to be spread around. Well, I have a long life ahead of me. Maybe I’ll be a General again, after a few years, or a few hundred.

  -16-

  Skull watched Firefly through again, hoping it would give him some inspiration. There were parallels with reality, with his situation. A slow-moving spaceship, no warp drives or sparkly transporter beams, no energy guns. Well, none that I know of, he thought. Have to ask her about that.

  And being locked inside a floating tin can with people you didn’t particularly like.

  Still not sure about that, actually. Not sure about anything. He’d come unmoored somehow, floating out here in the void between the planets. He felt himself gravitating toward her but distrusted the feeling. She doesn’t actually want me, she just wants someone now that she has time for her chick brain to start whispering to her. She doesn’t respect me. She feels sorry for me. To hell with that. To hell with all of them. Can’t have a woman that doesn’t respect you.

  Can’t have a woman at all, can you Skull?

  If you do, she’ll die too.

  “Good show, that.” Raphaela interrupted his thoughts, pointing at the video. She nibbled on a food-lump. “I always liked it.”

  “Half of you did.” He put some bite into the comment, pushing for distance.

  “Both of me did,” she objected without heat. “Raphael watched a lot of television too. He thought the stories gave him insight into the human psyche.”

  Skull snorted. “Maybe. Like vomit gives you insight into digestion.”

  She didn’t answer. They watched Captain Mal Reynolds get his crew out of another situation, something with Reapers or Reavers or Raiders. Neither of them were really paying attention to the show. They were trying too hard not to pay attention to each other.

  Finally he said, “Turn it off please.”

  She touched a screen.

  “How come you don’t have something better than touchscreens?”

  “Like what?” She drank from her bottle of flat, tasteless water.

  “I don’t know. Holo-sensors. Something like that.”

  She shrugged. “What advantage would it give? A touchscreen is display and control in one, infinitely reconfigurable. The only better thing I can think of might be cybernetic implants and the Meme…let’s just say they would think putting machines in their bodies as disturbing as you would find attaching a parasite to yourself.”

  “What about faster-than-light travel?”

  She chuckled. “That’s impossible.”

  “What about wormholes? Folded space?”

  “Wormholes move the traveler forward in time in direct proportion to their lengths. Nothing moves or propagates through the space-time continuum faster than light. A wormhole is just a tube that moves you a certain distance in a certain amount of time.”

  Skull’s brow furrowed, struggling. “So you can’t cheat.”

  “Not really. The time spent is always a function of lightspeed. A wormhole two light years long would deposit you at its end two years later. You would experience virtually no time because of infinite dilation, just like Einstein said. Stop worrying about it. There’s no way to gimmick the system. The main thing a wormhole would do for you is give you a free trip. No energy or fuel needed.”

  He nodded, thoughtful. “Then how long before the scoutship gets here?”

  She touched a screen, read the display. “Just under a year, if they slow down to match orbit with Earth. If they don’t, they could fly through the solar system in a lot less. Say four months. This is presuming I am correct in my calculations and assumptions, based on things like the wavelength dilation and Doppler effect in their transmissions, partial records on the base detailing normal Meme practices, things like that.”

  Skull snorted. “Things like that. Sounds like a lot of guesswork.”

  “You want to try to refine my guesswork, go ahead.”

  “I don’t need to. They’re not going to go to Earth first.”

  “What?” Raphaela put her hands on her hips and stuck her chin out. “How do you know?”

  “Put yourself in their place. You lost contact with your base. What would you do?”

  Her hands lifted from her hips to hug herself, rubbing her arms as if cold. “I’d want to know why.”

  “Right. Is that prediction too human?”

  She turned to pace the floor, short choppy steps, thinking. “No. You’re right. That’s what they will do.”

  Skull smiled. The stubble of his unshaven face gave him a devilish look. “Good.”

  -17-

  By the end of that day’s readiness processing all but seven of Repeth’s troops had accepted the Eden virus. Donovan had taken it and was already healed, for which she was glad. He’d nodded solemnly to her at dinner, and she knew she had another convert. She didn’t explicitly bring the virus up again, hoping that these skeptics would be won over by observation of their fellows.

  Critical training took up the next several days. She ran them hard each morning before breakfast, knowing the Edens would recover easily and their capacity would increase rapidly, while the few remaining normals would suffer. By day four she was down to three holdouts. She asked Captain LeBrun to transfer them.

  Part of each day they spent on the firing range, learning their new, Free Community-supplied weapons and ammunition, a gift of the FC Council. Enlightened self-interest, she thought. Every shot that makes an Eden and saves a life strengthens the Free Communities and the human race. Pudgy SSG Grusky turned out to be an excellent marksman, and the virus melted the roll of fat around his waist. She deliberately hadn’t said anything to the troops about the virtue effect, but she had counted on it to help Grusky and Donovan get over any wounded pride lingering from the thrashings she had given them.

  Time out of each day was spent in the classroom learning about the “death zones,” parts of the US devastated by radiation and Demon Plagues, and the permutations of benighted citizenry they would encounter.

  Normals infected by Demon Plague One they nicknamed “Onesies.” DP1 caused general surliness and malaise, sometimes a pox, hair and teeth loss, but the people remained more or less nasty versions of human. The real danger was how it set their bodies up for the Demon Plague Two infection. Cooperative or not, they would have to be inoculated with Eden Plague and nanovaccine and brought back to the refugee camps being set up at the edges of the zones.

  Reports and the theory said that Onesies infected by Demon Plague Two – “Twosies” – turned animalistic, savage, violent, likely to attack in packs or run and hide, spreading the infection further. These might have to be hunted down and inoculated by force, shot with Needleshock perhaps. The Eden Plague should cure their bestial natures, but unfortunately it couldn’t restore their minds. Perhaps they could be reeducated.

  The big brains said the Meme made the Demon Plagues this way so that at the end, they would have a bunch of human animals, with no minds to resist their takeover and Blending.

  There might be a few uninfected normals as well, and perhaps even a few Edens that had remained hidden in American society until the nukes fell. Complicating this mix of human types were the reports of well-armed bandit gangs, even warlord kingdoms, claiming territory and preying on everyone and everything around them.

  Personally, Repeth thought it would be even more complex than the disturbing intelligence briefings made out. There’s always an X factor, always a Black Swan popping up out of nowhere. Unknown unknowns, that we don’t even know that we don’t know.

  On the way from one class to another she caught sight of a familiar figure striding through the ha
ll, a pleasant-faced Adonis in a highly-starched lieutenant colonel’s uniform. A swirl of mixed emotion went through her and she called out, “Colonel Muzik!”

  Lieutenant Colonels, sometimes called “Light Colonels” or even “Phone Colonels,” were almost always given the courtesy of being called “Colonel.”

  His face lit up when he saw her. “Jill Repeth! Master Sergeant, no less. Now it’s ‘Top’ instead of ‘Gunny,’ right? I heard you turned down the President’s offer of a commission. That took balls.”

  Repeth’s answer was cool, her eyes icy. “I got balls, sir. Besides, what would I do with butterbars on my shoulders?”

  “You could have asked for a warrant.” Muzik’s tone had started friendly, but then stiffened in response to Repeth’s clear reticence.

  “A one-rank bump is good enough for me, sir. I told him if I get killed he can promote me posthumously to whatever he wants, and if not, well, I have a lot of years to work my way up without any freebies. I took a chance to get him the Eden serum, and I got lucky. It didn’t mean I suddenly knew how to be an officer.” She stared at him a moment longer, then made as if to go past. “Good day, sir.”

  He held up a hand. “Look, Master Sergeant…Top…Jill…Again, I’m sorry about the…about what I did on the mission. I can’t change the past. I’d like your forgiveness, but if you can’t go that far, then at least I’m sure you’re enough of a professional to not let it interfere with our mission.”

  He didn’t sound sure.

  Repeth glared at him for a long moment, remembering how he’d let himself be seduced and tranked by that murdering bitch Alkina, then relented. “I accept your apology, sir. My mind knows it wasn’t your fault, even if my guts think otherwise. Alkina had us all fooled. I’ve gone over it a thousand times in my mind and I already beat myself up for everything I should have done and could have done to change how it turned out.” She looked down at her empty palms for a moment, as if seeing something there. “And if you want to get down to it, I have a lot more blood on my hands than you do, so I have no room to judge you, sir.” She made a decision, held out one hand to clasp his. “Bygones?”

  Sighing with relief, he said, “Absolutely.” He smiled, lighting up the area around him as he took her hand. A passing female instructor walked into a doorjamb with a thud as her eyes locked onto his perfect face. He nodded to her and she blushed to the roots, then glanced at Jill.

  “Boo!” Jill said, making a face, and the civilian stumbled off. “I’d forgotten that effect those pretty eyes of yours have, sir,” she said as she let go of his clasp.

  He grimaced. “Yeah. Hell of a cross to bear.”

  “Horrible heavy thing.” She laughed. “So it looks like you’re back home and got to keep your rank.”

  “Yes, the vetting process was a pain but Markis put in a good word for me. And with Spooky gone…”

  “I know what you mean. FC spec ops just wasn’t the same. And frankly, this is like coming home, being back in a line unit. What are you doing here, sir?”

  He looked down, affecting embarrassment. “I guess I’m your new commander. Second Joint Civil Operations Bat.”

  “That’s outstanding, sir. I’m glad you decided to come home.” She found she meant it.

  “It’s another test, Jill. They don’t want us repatriates anywhere political, so they are sending us to the front lines. If we prove ourselves there, then maybe they will trust us a little. And if we die, problem solved.”

  She frowned. “I never thought about it like that. Makes me glad I’m riding my people so hard. They need to be ready.”

  He laughed. “Yes, I heard about your counseling sessions.”

  She tensed, waiting for him to disapprove, but he just cocked an eyebrow at her. “I trust you know how much of that sauce to use before it spoils the goose?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, because I hear you already have the best platoon in your company. Maybe the battalion. I have people asking to join. I have lieutenants asking to be given command of it.” He watched her attentively.

  Jill's lips pressed together. “Sir, if that’s what you decide…”

  “I know. Semper Fi and drive on. And if we had a month I might pick out a snotnosed young zero and let you whip him into shape too, but I’m not going to derail your train at the last minute. No, Top, you go into battle leading your own troops.”

  Her face dimpled with a genuine grin. “Thank you, sir!”

  “Don’t thank me until you see what we’re up against. Before this is over you might wish you had an officer to take the load off your shoulders.

  ***

  It took until the fifth day before Repeth was able to get ten minutes alone with Captain LeBrun. She wasn’t entirely sure if he was avoiding her, but this time she wasn’t going to let him off the hook. She resolved he’d have to order her away this time.

  “All right, Repeth, what you got? Make it quick.” His office was filled with cigarette smoke despite the open window and the fan.

  “Sir, I want to know about those Homies.”

  “The Homeland Security Forces? What about them?” He seemed casual but she thought she noted a certain reserve.

  “What will be their mission? How do we integrate? What is their jurisdiction? I still have no idea and a lot of my people don’t trust them. There are wild rumors going around. Are they nano-enhanced? Does it make them mentally unstable? Are they going to shoot sick civilians on sight? Lots of things like that, and the scuttlebutt usually frames the answers in the most lurid and negative terms possible. I need some ground truth, sir.”

  LeBrun put his feet up on the desk. “Their mission is classified. We are supposed to provide security so our civil affairs folks can do their jobs. That’s what MPs do, provide security. Keep order.” He eyed her warily, sucking on another tobacco tube.

  “Dammit sir, I know what our mission is. I need to know enough about the Homies to tell my people. They aren’t robots, and Edens are not good at blindly following orders. They need to know the ‘why’. And the other platoons are wondering too.”

  LeBrun twitched, refusing to relax and open up, even on that professional level she had come to expect. Still, he answered. “All right. Here’s what I’ll tell you, which is more than I should. They are all getting nano but it’s not the supersoldier stuff. It just heals them and protects them from disease. I’ve been assured all the war criminals have been culled out.” He held up a hand, cigarette pinched between fingers, to forestall her response. “I know, who can tell for sure? Look, you’ve been an Eden so long you got spoiled, and you’re bigoted about it. I’ve only been one for a few weeks so I can see it a lot more clearly.”

  Repeth clenched her teeth. “What do you mean bigoted? I treat everyone the same.”

  “Really? You told everyone in Fourth Platoon that they would either get the virus or transfer out. Isn’t that bigotry?”

  “The way I see it it’s just insisting they equip themselves with the tools of survival.”

  “I’m not saying what you did was bad for your platoon – in the short term – otherwise I’d have stepped in. I’m questioning why you did it. You sure you don’t have something to prove?”

  “A woman in combat always has something to prove.”

  LeBrun sighed heavily, ground out his current smoke. “Not ‘A woman,’Repeth. You. Last time you were in the US the Unionists tried to take away your identity. They kicked you out of the Corps, threw you in prison, told everyone you were a traitor and mentally ill. Now you’re back, and you won. You’re vindicated. I figured you’d have to get some of that happy-dance out of your system but now that you have your platoon in shape, it seems to me you’re expressing your prejudice against normals.”

  Jill breathed deeply for a moment, trying to push aside her denial, trying to examine herself objectively. Finally, she said, “All right, sir. Maybe so. But aside from that, I’m worried…aren’t you worried?”

  LeBrun lit another smoke from t
he burning butt. The fresh smell assaulted her nostrils. With the first drag he replied, “I have concerns, but they aren’t much different from the concerns of a normal unit before Infection Day. I wonder how soldiers – sorry, joint military troops – will react in a hostile environment where we have to actively sort friend from foe, where no one is wearing a uniform except us, where there are a thousand wrong moves and only a few right ones. Where one wrong move can get you killed, Eden or not.”

  She nodded, casting her eyes down. I’ve been so focused on getting Fourth Platoon ready I forgot about the bigger picture. It’s great not to have an officer looking over my shoulder but it’s easy to get trapped down in the weeds, lose my perspective. “Yes, sir. You’re right. I’ll try to keep what you’ve said in mind.”

  He nodded, gazing steadily at her, as if waiting for something. Jill wasn’t sure what he wanted but there was one question that had occurred to her. “Sir…you’re a bit different from the average captain I’ve worked for before…” She trailed off, not sure how to ask him “why?”

  He chuckled grimly. “I’m not a career officer. Or I wasn’t, who knows now? I was a permanently-stuck captain in the Nebraska National Guard and the sole policeman in the bustling metropolis of Crawville, population one thousand. They activated me just a few weeks ago. So pardon me if I’m not dyed green enough yet or I don’t fit your template. I’m a cop, first and foremost, and you are too. I think you’ve been a commando for just a little too long.” His gaze sharpened. “I think you need to start being a cop again.”

  Repeth flushed, suddenly ashamed, realizing he was right. “Aye, sir. Thank you sir.”

  “You’re welcome.” LeBrun gave her one more searching look. “Dismissed. Oh,” he said, standing up, “There was someone here earlier looking for you. A civilian. I told him he could wait in your office.”

  She opened her mouth to ask who it was, then shut it again.

  “Maybe you’d better run along and see. Go on.” His eyes were amused.