by Jeff Carlson
The faces in the photos were full of the plague’s staring confusion. Their pupils were distorted and the man’s head hung sideways on his neck, his mouth slanting open.
But they’re supposed to be okay! Deborah thought.
All of the complexes in Grand Lake were set apart from each other because they’d been built at different times and because it had been thought best to spread their assets. Complex 3 was also specially retrofitted to make sure it was airtight because they believed it might become dangerous. Three was where Grand Lake maintained their nanotech labs. Those people should have been able to keep the new plague out as perfectly as they kept their own experiments inside.
The woman was Meghna Katechia, an Indian national who became the head of Grand Lake’s weapons program after the war. The man was Steve McCown, Katechia’s top assistant, who had worked with Ruth Goldman herself for a time.
“Can you confirm—” the officer began.
“Steve McCown and Meghna Katechia,” Deborah said. “Where are the others? Did we get out Laury or Aaron?”
“No. We think one of the civilians panicked and tried to run for it. Complex 3 was a total loss.”
In the next row, a translator bolted upright from her desk and shouted, “Sir! General Caruso, sir! I have a Russian field general calling on all frequencies for assistance from U.S. forces! He’s reporting widespread infections in California and says he’s also been cut off from mainland Russia!”
“Jesus Christ,” the Navy officer muttered, but Caruso turned to an Army colonel and said, “Get on that, John.” He waved to another man and called, “Where are our satellites?”
A double cross? Deborah wondered. The Chinese are attacking their friends, too. Why?
“I think he’s telling the truth, sir!” the translator shouted as the colonel pressed into the crowd to reach him, calling new orders to the entire group.
“Press the Europeans again,” the colonel said. “What do they know?”
Caruso turned back to Deborah. “Can you help us if we get some equipment out of the labs?” he asked.
“Sir?”
“If we can’t decontaminate the gear, we’ll put you in a suit and bring everything to a safe room. I’m willing to send men out there if you think you have any chance of giving us some information on this nanotech. Anything at all.”
Deborah stammered. “I — Sir.” She didn’t want to fail him, but she couldn’t lie. “I’m a physician. My involvement with the nanotech programs was negligible at best.”
“You know more than anyone else I’ve got,” Caruso said.
“General, I have the 35 on the phone again!” the Navy officer called, holding out a handset.
Caruso kept his eyes on Deborah. “You know how to operate their microscopes,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I’m sending a team to recover what we can.” Caruso gestured to two officers nearby. Both of them nodded. One picked up a phone. Without wasting another moment, Caruso pressed his own handset to his ear and said, “This is A6.”
He listened only an instant before his mouth twisted.
“Every minute there is more and more evidence that we know exactly where the nanotech originated,” he said. “Goldman was right.”
Ruth? Deborah thought. She’s alive!
More than that, it sounded as though Ruth was working on their side again, which made Deborah happier than she would have expected.
“Where is the secretary?” Caruso asked. “If he cannot personally verify his whereabouts, I am in command.” Then: “I am in command.” He pointed to an officer seated at the computers and said, “Emergency action message. Authenticate our status as Kaleidoscope.”
“This is Wild Fire with an EAM for all units,” the man said into his headset. “I repeat, this is Wild Fire with an Emergency Action Message for all units. Prepare to copy message.”
Caruso gestured to a different station. “Try to get me a direct line to the Chinese premier or anyone in their civilian government in California,” he said. “We’ll make one more effort to call them off.”
“Juliet Victor Bravo Golf Whiskey Golf November Delta. I repeat, Juliet Victor Bravo Golf Whiskey Golf November Delta,” the other man said, and Deborah felt her skin crawl again, because she knew what Caruso was doing.
After the war, they’d dispersed their civilian and military hierarchies as far as they were able. They could have returned to D.C., for example, but it was two thousand miles from the Rockies. The logistics would have been daunting. Even if they’d beefed up local defenses, D.C. would be alone, so the great majority of American and Canadian forces stayed along the Continental Divide, not only to save their strength but to remain massed against the enemy in California.
Fortunately, the Rockies stretched through eight states and one Canadian Province. Only the president, some military staffers, and a few of their irregularly elected congressmen were in Missoula. The rest of the top members of the U.S. leadership were scattered across the Divide to prevent them from ever being killed by one surgical strike. Their command systems were equally redundant.
Peterson AFB, on the east side of the Rockies, had been restored as one of their largest air bases. Years ago, Peterson had served as the new center for NORAD after the famous old tunnels beneath Cheyenne Mountain were mothballed, and the infrastructure at Peterson was too valuable to ignore even if it had taken some fallout. Unfortunately, because Peterson was also home to multiple air wings, it was a surface base. A few of its buildings could be sealed against biological threats or nanotechnology, but Deborah guessed now that Peterson was no better off than the mountaintops above Grand Lake.
If the secretary of defense was in Peterson, he could be lost like the president and the VP, either infected or hurt or cut off. From what she’d heard, the SecDef must have insisted that Caruso stay his hand until they were positive who’d created the new plague, but Caruso was usurping the SecDef in the succession of command for America’s nuclear arsenal.
It’s come to this, Deborah thought.
A profound sense of reality washed over her. She felt the bagginess of her uniform and breathed in the tense, acrid smell of the men and women who filled this box. Every choice they made now was as large as the world.
“Sir, I’m sorry,” she said, trying to interrupt.
There was a new fear coiling in her chest. She knew General Caruso from the war. The American side hadn’t had many advantages, and he’d seen little except defeat. He had been an advocate of using Ruth’s skills to commit genocide against the Russians and the Chinese, and Deborah wondered if he’d finally seen his chance.
“Sir, you’re in contact with Ruth Goldman?” she asked. “We need her — not me. She can tell us what’s happening.”
“You’re all we’ve got, Major.”
“What about Ruth?”
“Sir, I have the assistant secretary of defense on the horn!” called the Navy officer.
“Disconnect that line,” Caruso said. His lips pressed together like knives. Then he turned to a woman at another desk and said, “I want an open broadcast to all Chinese forces. They will stop their attack immediately or we’ll hit Los Angeles.”
What if Ruth is dead? Deborah wondered. Infected? She knew she wouldn’t be able to provide more than the slightest information about the mind plague herself. Caruso’s choice might be the only way. The U.S. had lost control of most of its silos during the plague year, because while those underground holes were well sealed, their oxygen was only meant to last a few days. Only an extremely limited number of crews had managed to wait it out after being equipped with precious supplies and air compressors that allowed them to create the low air densities necessary to destroy the machine plague.
With the vaccine, however, the USAF had retaken those silos, and now they had thousands of Minuteman and Titan missiles on hand — plenty to eradicate mainland China if Caruso gave the order.
You have to believe he’s right, Deborah told
herself, like she’d always told herself. But her doubt was heavy inside her. She glanced up at the situation maps again, desperate to see some shred of hope. Instead, the dots in Russian-occupied California were turning into ghosts, static and dim, leaving only the Chinese zones in the southern half of the state untouched, like a safe zone or an epicenter.
North America teetered on the brink of nuclear war.
13
The jeep took them thirty miles into the night before the gas tank ran dry. That’s enough, Ruth thought as Bobbi pumped her boot on the accelerator and tried the ignition again. That has to be enough.
“Goddammit!” Bobbi said.
Ruth merely rose into a crouch with her M4 held high, ready to jump down on either side of the vehicle. Ingrid stood taller with her M16. The wind was cold and felt like death. Ruth heard crickets, which surprised her.
Ree. Ree ree.
At first the sound was irregular, but the night quickly filled with it again. The crickets had only stopped because of the intrusion of the jeep. Ruth turned her head to try to get a feel for the size of the hillside beyond the white beams of the headlights and, beside her, she saw Cam with his right arm pressed against his ribs, holding a pistol in his good hand.
She wanted to protect him so much she turned away before he could see it in her eyes. She’d long since removed her goggles to help Bobbi navigate through the dark. Off-road, those thirty miles had taken hours. Several times they’d stopped completely while Ruth or Ingrid paced ahead to inspect a creek or a hillside or groves of dead trees.
“Turn off the lights,” Cam said. Bobbi did. Otherwise there were only the stars. The night hinted at a long, slumping ridgeline above them to the southeast.
Far below, looking north, the black valley was marred by a patch of smoldering orange coals. It wasn’t Jefferson. Their home was out of sight beyond the foothills. This fire was farther north and much bigger than twenty structures.
Morristown had burned, too.
“We need some recon,” Ruth said. Their plan was to stay with the vehicle for a while. Dawn was only a few hours away. No one wanted to break their leg hiking in the dark, and Cam needed stitching. They all needed food and rest. The hot engine would also help them show up on infrared if a chopper flew overhead or if satellites photographed the area. They could use the headlights as a signal, too, at least until the sun came up.
Ruth also wanted to check her laptop. Before the fight in Jefferson, she’d initiated programs to crunch through her surface scan of the mind plague. She didn’t expect to have results yet, but she was anxious to confirm that the computer was still functioning. Its battery should be good for another six hours, but she had two extras and she would need to freeze and save her program before switching out.
Once there had been planes in the night. They’d also heard gunshots rolling through the hills up north. There were probably survivors out of Morristown, but even if those people remained free of the plague, the shots would attract more of the infected. Ruth’s group faced the same problem with their engine and their lights. They needed to make sure they were alone.
Ingrid slung her rifle. “I’ll go.”
“Wait. Help me with Cam.”
“I’m all right,” he said.
“You’re still bleeding!” Ruth swung to face him, catching his good arm. He’d leaned forward to climb down from the jeep, which frightened her. “Let me help you,” she said.
“All right.”
“Let us help,” she repeated, correcting herself. Me. Us. The words were a small distinction when everyone else they knew was gone, but Ruth was vividly aware of trying to quiet her emotions. The loyalty she felt for him was savage and blind. Ruth wouldn’t hesitate to kill for Bobbi or Ingrid, because they were all that was left of her home, but she would die for Cam.
“Here,” she said, gesturing toward the downwind side of the jeep. The vehicle offered some protection from the cold. It would do no good if the breeze was threaded with nanotech, but the alternative was to be completely exposed and she couldn’t accept that.
The three of them got Cam out of the jeep without jarring the rags she’d cinched under his arm. Then they sat him against the front tire, where Ruth smelled oil and hot metal and the cool scent of the crushed short grass.
She grabbed her backpack. They had almost nothing else except for her laptop — no tent, no blankets, and only the few canteens she’d stuffed into her pack with some cornmeal, potato powder, and dried tomatoes. She was hungry. She ignored it. She flipped open her computer and nodded once in the blue glow of its screen. Her analysis of the nanotech’s surface scan was still running. The progress bar stood at 46 percent. She would have liked to use the laptop’s screen for a light source, but it was smarter to conserve power.
The screen went dark when she shut its clamshell. Ruth took off her face mask and tried to remove her bloodstained gloves, too, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. It took her a moment to rip away the duct tape sealing her jacket cuffs. Then she knelt in front of Cam. He’d also pushed off his goggles and mask while Bobbi put hers back on. The lack of armor made Ruth and Cam different from the other two.
“Okay, I’ll take care of him,” Ruth said to them. “You should…” She stopped and tried to soften her tone. “Can you set up an LP?”
Ingrid shook her head. “What?”
“Listening post,” Ruth said. She’d spent so much time with Cam and Eric, she’d forgotten that not everyone in Jefferson was part of their militia. Ingrid had been an unofficial grandmother to their babies, a seamstress, a barber, and their dentist, often working in Morristown and sometimes as far away as New Jackson. The older woman had been an oral hygienist before she retired, years ago, and they’d been lucky to have her as part of their community.
“Maybe we should stick together,” Bobbi said unhappily.
“No, she’s right,” Ingrid said. “If we split up… if something happens…
If any of them were hit by the nanotech, the others would have a better chance of stopping the infected one if they weren’t too close together. If there was any warning at all in the dark.
Ruth took Ingrid’s glove with her bare fingers before the older woman could leave. “Don’t go too far,” she said. “We just want to make some kind of perimeter. I think on the west side. Downhill. Okay? Find a place where you’re out of the wind, but close enough that we can hear you if you shout.”
“I don’t like it,” Bobbi said.
“I’ll trade places with you in an hour. Please.” Ruth must have let her possessiveness show in her voice or the way she knelt with Cam. Behind her goggles, Bobbi’s face was impossible to read, but the small, birdlike movement of her head was full of knowing.
“I can take a shift, too,” Cam said.
“You were shot! You need to rest.”
Ingrid left them to their quarrel, walking into the darkness. “Let her take care of you,” Ingrid said gently. Perhaps her tone was as much for Ruth as it was for Cam.
Bobbi hesitated. She was still in shock and afraid and jealous, too, Ruth thought, but Ruth fixed her attention on Cam, closing her world down to him. She did this without meeting his eyes, studying his torso instead.
“Can you lift your arm?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“We need to get your jacket off without moving the bandage, but I don’t want to cut it. You need it to stay warm.”
Bobbi turned and left with a grunt like impatience.
Everywhere, the crickets sang. The wind curled around either side of the jeep and underneath it. Cam winced as Ruth helped him strip his gloves. She pulled his good arm free of its sleeve, then stood over him to unwrap the jacket from his body. Everything they did felt like a slow dance, moving together. At last, she drew the sleeve from his other arm.
His shirt was damp with blood down to his belt.
“Oh my God,” she said.
“I don’t think my ribs are broken.”
“Shush. Let me clean the
wound.”
Ruth used her knife to remove his shirt because she needed to save the cleanest parts for a sponge and fresh bandaging. But he was right. The wound wasn’t too bad. The bullet had grazed his pectoral muscle just below his armpit, leaving a gash about two inches long, wider in back, like a sideways V. In some places he was already clotting, so Ruth was careful not to scrub, pressing delicately at the wound instead.
Cam’s body was dark and lean with muscle. His scars were disturbing, though. Most of his chest was peppered with old blister rash, and yet the smooth areas prickled with goose bumps from the cold where his skin was ordinary and perfect.
“Ruth,” he said.
She looked up, hoping. But he wasn’t watching her. He was gazing at the sky. You can say anything to me, she thought.
There was only the crickets. The wind.
He said, “Why is this happening?”
Ruth could barely admit to herself that she’d wanted to hear something else. What was wrong with her? They’d seen so much death. She was crazy to expect him to kiss her.
Kiss me, she thought, even as she rebuked herself. “I don’t know,” she said. But she knew. Some ideas were too powerful to ignore, forever changing the course of history. The wheel. Agriculture. Industry. The bomb. Today, Earth’s population was barely more than five hundred million people. Many of them had dispersed from the mountains, but, for the most part, they were still gathered into a handful of safe zones.
There had never been a better time to attack. One nation or creed could take possession of the entire planet, remaking humankind in its own image. Maybe there would always be one warlord or another returning to the same scheme in different ways, from Senator Kendricks to the Russian generals who’d initiated the war to the men in the Chinese government who must have overseen the development of the new plague.
It’s always men, she thought. Too aggressive. Too afraid. Women would find another way.
Ruth put all of her concentration into stitching his wound. It was ugly work. The needle was blunt and the heavy thread in her kit was meant for sewing. Nor did they have any anesthetic, not even weed or moonshine. Cam’s tolerance for pain was well learned, however, and he said nothing as she fumbled and squinted in the dark.
