The Reaper Plague

by David VanDyke

  “Damn. Don’t worry, he’ll turn up.”

  She didn’t answer, just said, “Let’s get you fixed up, sir. Margie!”

  The former professor of English Literature, already looking slimmer, younger and healthier, bustled happily over to Repeth. When she saw Colonel Muzik’s face she nearly drooled. “Oh, you poor man, let me show you to a nice room, we have some all cleaned and ready. Oh, your arm! You poor dear…”

  Another conquest, and not a shot fired, Repeth thought with what amusement she could muster. Watch out, Roger, or you may wake up with a plus-size cuddly companion. Probably do you some good to get your ashes hauled. Feeling slightly guilty for such salacious approbation, she shrugged, then her mind turned naturally back to her obsession.

  Have to find Rick.

  ***

  The next morning Repeth stopped in to visit a brother in arms. It’s the least I can do, for someone who almost gave his all.

  Gunnery Sergeant Gunderson lay in his hospital bed, a nutrient drip in his arm, holding a year-old news magazine up in the air where he could read it. When he saw her standing there he shifted, tried to sit up.

  “Stay there, Swede. I know you have a lot of healing to do yet.”

  He looked down self-consciously at the blanket draped over a stiff cage that covered his mangled lower half. “Yeah. Ain’t much down there but they say I’ll have it all back eventually.” He forced a wan smile.

  “Not many men have come back from the brink like that.”

  “I don’t quit.” He licked his lips. “I hear you were the one who found me.”

  “Almost too late.”

  “But at least you looked. Thanks, Top.”

  She shrugged. “I’d do it for any of my people.”

  “Am I your people?” He put his head back, closed his eyes. “Just one big happy freakin’ family.” What slight enthusiasm he had displayed drained away.

  Jill stared at him for a long time, puzzled. “I’d never have figured you for this attitude, though. I’m sorry I didn’t find you earlier, but no one could have saved your piece parts. Anyway, in a few months you’ll be fine, good as new.”

  “You’re a bitch,” Swede said without heat.

  Nonplussed, Jill crossed her arms. “So they say. What’s up your ass?”

  “They’ve got this new nano stuff. They wanted volunteers. I had a chance to be a cybercommando but now I’ve got this damned Eden Plague.”

  “You’d be a dead volunteer if you hadn’t.”

  “I know that. Doesn’t make it better. Now I’m just going to be a good little boy. That’s how you like ‘em, right?” Bitter.

  Jill shrugged again, ignoring the jab, the slam on Rick. “What’s done is done. Snap out of it, Marine. Besides, you can always try to make the switch, but think of what you’re giving up.”

  “What? Make what switch?”

  “I’m sure they could suppress the Eden Plague with enough antivirals to let the nanos take hold and cure you of it. You’d heal and get all that strength and speed but you wouldn’t be immortal any more.”

  “Screw immortality. It’s overrated.”

  “You’d give up a thousand years of life to be strong and fast?”

  “And be free of this guilt. Die young, stay pretty.”

  “I’d say live long, stay pretty. And the guilt will fade as your psychology adjusts. It’s just your overactive conscience waking up.”

  “Okay, how about ‘It’s better to burn out than fade away’.”

  “That’s a crock. But if you’re so hot for it, roll the dice, big man. It might kill you, but whatever.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm, fed up.

  “Why do you have such contempt for me?”

  She kicked his bed, rattling it. “Because even though you have your outstanding features, you’re still the stereotype for all the swinging dicks that I’ve ever known, beginning with my creepy stepbrother. Got to be a stud, super-macho. And you see me, you want me. If you can’t have me, you want me all the more. If you still can’t have me, you crave enough power or glory or money or status to prove how wrong I was to reject you.”

  Gunderson’s mouth worked, as if chewing, then he turned his head away. Jill watched him in silence for a time. Finally he spoke. “You know what? I don’t have any counterargument to that, and I hate it.”

  “Hate admitting the truth?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Welcome to Edenhood. But you know what that means?”

  “What?”

  “That deep down you actually are a good guy. It’s not the Eden Plague that makes you better. It’s your own conscience. The Plague just short-circuits most of those lies you tell yourself. Makes you face the truth you already know. Takes off the filters.”

  “That sucks. I think I’d rather have my filters.”

  “Takes a real man to be really honest. Only children can’t face reality. Only adolescent boys try to screw every woman they meet.”

  “Who died and made you my shrink?” he spat.

  Jill shrugged. “You can send me away any time.”

  He stared at her for a long while. “You Edens aren’t anything like I thought.”

  “Us Edens. And yes, you’re right about that. We aren’t.” She turned and left him there with nothing to do but think. I’m not sure what he needs but he’s not mine anyway. I can only do so much for people. After that, they have to do for themselves.

  Saddle up, Jill. Best horses and all that.

  ***

  Two weeks later US ground forces cautiously pushed in from the west to find no organized resistance. Their supplies and civil support troops were welcome, but the heavy combat forces had nothing much to do except spread out and help the medical teams enforce the inoculation protocol with desperate speed. It was a race with the coming Reaper Plague, to see who got there first. The alien probe could appear any day now.

  They went farm to farm, house to house, seeking any signs of habitation. Once they found people, they had to persuade them to be immunized. Many times the people had to be forced, or even shot with Needleshock, to get them to comply. Even explaining that within just a few days the angel of death was coming to call didn’t suffice. After all the country – and the world – had been through, many just wanted to fort up and keep everyone outside.

  But if they did that, they would die.

  Jill Repeth and her MPs worked tirelessly bringing life to the people, always hoping to run across a sign of Rick Johnstone, or of the Professor. They questioned everyone they came across.

  Of Rick, she found nothing but one frightened Fredericksburg slave who said he had helped out with the Professor’s computers, then had been “traded away.” Pressed about what that meant, the man could only babble about “shadow men” and “burn rooms.” He was remanded to the psych teams, and Jill kept looking.

  They tracked the Professor and a few of his closest men northward into the death zone, where the only living things hid too well and too deep for the overworked search teams to dig out. Repeth pleaded to be allowed to go after him, but was overruled. Everyone was needed to get the vaccines to the people.

  Almost she rebelled, considering desertion to go find Rick on her own. Or if that failed, to hunt down Professor Stone and demand some answers; but to do so would bend her sense of duty past the breaking point. Once, she’d deserted an unlawful regime for reasons she could live with, but this time it wouldn’t be justified.

  Colonel Muzik promised that as soon as the Reaper Plague fell and had done its worst, he would let her pick a team and go. Until then, her first priority was to get the vaccines to the populace. Every inoculation meant one less to die. So she threw herself into that work like an ox in harness, attacking the task as if her individual efforts could significantly hasten its completion. Here and there she picked up a clue, or a hint, of where to look, and stored it away in memory.

  Word of Fredericksburg’s fall spread to the edge of the death zones, and most of the newly-formed city-states capi
tulated as soon as General Alice Zimmer’s armored task forces showed up. She’d said that a helping hand and a tank company got much better results than a helping hand alone, and she was right. General Zimmer became the popular champion of the reconquest, but those in the know quietly spoke of a different hero, one who helped the people, eschewed the spotlight, and traveled deeper into her own darkness.

  -42-

  The last of the three Meme probes released its reentry bodies above the Earth. Their courses varied little from those that released the first two Plague bearers. Only this time, the payload was not chaos, or oblivion, but death. The sole goal of this Reaper Plague was to murder anyone that had not already contracted a Demon Plague.

  As throughout interstellar space, six hundred sixty-five times already, the Meme plan was simple: weaken, stupefy, and kill. If the aliens had their way, the only homo sapiens left would be those prepared for Blending, and thus, ready-made invaders.

  Russia and China made valiant efforts to intercept the biological warheads, but they failed. The Reaper Plague rained down, and Death and Hell followed with it. As before, Australia, South Africa, and sparsely populated areas were spared at first, but eventually it reached everywhere. Spread on the winds, in the water, by touch and carried by the insects and vermin, it was cleverly designed for every animal to carry, for every living creature no matter how small or large to be a vector.

  The vaccinated survived. Mostly. Statistically. About eighty-seven percent. But thirteen percent of six billion was still hundreds of million who died in agony. And unvaccinated Edens might as well have played Russian roulette with three bullets loaded. Their death rate approached one in two.

  But the Reaper Plague was by far the most virulent and deadly of the diseases and those without any protection died within twelve hours as it ate them from within.

  The world’s medical personnel desperately tried to stay ahead of the infection. Sometimes they succeeded; other times the Reaper stalked the streets. The world convulsed and remade itself again as more than a billion human beings died.

  -43-

  Elise Markis gently shook Daniel, waking him up from a sound sleep. “That can’t be comfortable,” she said gently as he lifted his head off of his desk. “You have a paper clip stuck to your cheek.” She reached out to peel it off.

  “Hi, sweetheart. What are you doing here?”

  “Daily staff meeting?”

  “Where’s Shawna?” He meant her administrative supervisor, who usually handled the staff functions.

  “She needed a day off, and I needed to get out of the lab. And I wanted to see how you are doing.”

  He rubbed his face, then reached up to grasp his wife’s hand. “I’m fine, let me just get some coffee.”

  Cup in hand and brain in gear, he walked in to find himself late and the Chairman’s large executive conference room already full with over a hundred people. He knew it would be more bad news, but he was numb. One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. Old Joe Stalin was a crafty son of a bitch. “Sorry to be late, folks. What do we have? Military intel first.”

  A Free Communities Armed Forces colonel stood up. “NSTR, sir.” This meant ‘nothing significant to report.’ “Everyone’s too busy with the pandemic to make any significant military moves.”

  “The Aussies? The Orion ship?”

  “Still on track, sir.”

  Chairman Markis nodded. He’d get more detailed and specific intel from Cassandra if he wanted it. “Medical?”

  “Approximately 26 million more deaths this morning, as far as we can tally.” The doctor, crumpled note paper in hand, looked exhausted. Perhaps it was more from the horrifying statistics than sheer overwork. “That makes about one point one billion, we estimate.” He paused, took a breath. “The good news is the rate is slowing down. The disease is burning itself out. It’s found almost everyone without resistance.”

  Chairman Markis nodded and the man sat down. “Elise, what about the cure research?” He was interested himself in hearing from her, unfiltered through the laboratory administration.

  Elise stood up and smiled wanly. “I have good news, which is one reason I wanted to come make the report myself. It’s very preliminary, but yesterday we had our first post-infection Reaper Plague survivor.”

  Scattered applause broke out and the Chairman waved for quiet.

  “It’s tentative right now, it might be a fluke, but the tests are encouraging. It’s hard to reach infectees and administer the experimental treatments under anything like controlled conditions. I have teams all over Africa chasing infection hot spots and trying each serum batch out as they become available. But I am convinced we will have something reliable within weeks. I’m sorry it couldn’t be faster.”

  More cheers and kind words poured forth from those in attendance, and this time Daniel let it run its course. Elise sat down with some embarrassment.

  Eventually the Chairman rapped the table and spoke. “All right, people, that’s good news but people are still dying out there. Us healthy people have to keep plugging away at our work, keep our spirits up, and do the best we can for humanity. Now, who’s next? Logistics? What, powerpoint slides again? Make it fast.” The meeting went on in true governmental fashion, grinding through bureaucratic reports ad nauseum.

  Later, in his office, Daniel and Elise Markis embraced, pressing their bodies together with quiet warmth. “Good to see you again, O wife of mine,” Daniel husked as he kissed her.

  “Ditto, O Lord of the Free Communities.”

  “For the nonce. When this stupid Meme threat is over with, I’ll be happy to abdicate.”

  Elise pulled Daniel down to his office sofa. “When is it over? Raphael said the scout ship is due in eight months or so. Let’s say the Orion battleship handles that threat. We have no way of knowing how long before the next one shows up. What if it’s some kind of Death Star thingy?”

  “Thingy? What’s a thingy, is that a scientific term?” He laughed, kissed her again. “Then we build some X-wings, train some Jedi, and go blow it up.”

  “Come on, you know what I mean.”

  “I’ve got a Red-Blue team already working on the problem, and they are in contact with others across the FC. I’m also pushing for a big open mil-sci conference in the next few months to share research. You just focus on the biological stuff, let me handle the politics.”

  Elise stroked Daniel’s face. “Yes, my king, I hear and obey.” She reached for his top button. “Got time for an intimate meeting with your most loyal subject?”

  “I think I can clear my calendar.” He reached for his phone and texted his staff to leave him alone for an hour, while Elise locked the door.

  -44-

  Brigadier Nguyen’s captive American nanocommandos now resided, if that was the word, in a state-of-the-art underground complex. Months of experimentation had dug out all their secrets.

  Of course, they had experienced very little pain as they lay helpless, usually unconscious, strapped to the tables. Many of the laboratory staff were Edens, loyal to Australia and the Free Communities of course, but also unlikely to stand for anything that smacked of torture or inhumanity. Thus, Nguyen decided, it was time to make a change, to move to the next phase.

  First he reorganized the research facility. Edens ended up working with other Edens on projects that, while important and vital, did not impinge on their sympathy for their subjects. They toiled at reverse engineering, reengineering, and reprogramming the American nanites in accordance with Nguyen’s instructions. Injected into humanely treated test subjects, the tiny robots healed tissue, carried oxygen, and protected cells from the damaging effects of the cold and vacuum of space. They boosted or slowed metabolism, they augmented muscle strength and reaction speed, all as they had been designed to do, but subtly altered.

  The most important goal for Nguyen’s Eden scientists was to limit the nanites’ lifespan. To allow them to reproduce, but only so many times, allowing the user perhaps t
hree months of full efficiency and another three months before their pseudo-life faded, halted, and they were excreted from the body. Once achieved, this goal would ensure both his control over the technology, and would eliminate the chance of rogue nano-replications finding their way out into the environment and running free in the ecosystem.

  Before they were even a reality, they called these safer nanites Fully-Controllable Nanobots, or FCNs, and the Edens were dedicated to improving them to the benefit of Australia, the Free Communities and the world.

  Nguyen’s smaller staff of normals and Psychos – each implanted with a deadman charge next to his or her heart – worked on somewhat different projects. Where the FCNs were modified to avoid entering the brain, and to do nothing if they did, the American CCNs – cybercommando nanos – became the basis for many interesting experiments. Had these become known to the Edens they would have been appalled and horrified to see what was done beneath their feet, in the deeply-buried underground levels of the laboratory.

  Some days Nguyen would observe through the thick glass as a dangerous new nano was tested on the Americans. He especially liked to watch Huff as he screamed and struggled against his restraints, experimental machines running wild through his body for just long enough. Then the electromagnetic field would be fed power and the variant CCNs inactivated, dialyzed out, and FCNs reintroduced to help the man heal. Spooky enjoyed hearing Huff cry out for mercy from this hell, but sometimes he allowed the escape of unconsciousness.

  Other days he locked everyone out of the private observation room except for Ann, and they would enjoy his screams together while indulging themselves. If only Deliah could see me now, he thought, she would be lost to me. To keep two mistresses, one Eden and one Psycho, is to walk the knife’s edge without being cut. What greater pleasure can there be than to do what is prohibited, and not be found out…and to do it again.