by Jeff Carlson
He slapped at Bobbi on the other side of the Humvee, dragging her toward the plane with such maniacal force that he threw her to the ground. “Get up! Go!” he yelled, clutching at her sleeve.
Foshtomi’s reaction was more vicious. At first Cam thought she’d killed Ruth. She emptied her carbine on full auto, the gun chattering inside the metal warehouse.
“Noooo!” Cam yelled before looking back. Foshtomi stood in the space between the Humvee and the office wall, but Cam glimpsed just enough details to realize she was firing over Ruth into the far wall of the building. The aluminum popped and rang. Foshtomi was using her weapon to create an airflow away from herself. Maybe it was enough to repel the nanotech.
Men were shouting. “What happened! What happened!”
Pritchard ran past Cam and Bobbi, sprinting in the same direction as they ducked the Osprey’s huge tail fins. Then someone in a containment suit blocked their path. It was Medrano. “Where is Goldman!?” he shouted.
Cam tried to dodge by, but Medrano grabbed him. Cam shoved Bobbi toward the front of the plane even as he yelled, “She’s gone — Infected—”
They separated. Medrano and a second man in a black suit charged toward the Humvee. Cam banged alongside the plane. The fuselage was only sixty feet long. There was a loading ramp under its tail, but they’d been using the forward door on its starboard side. Each breath was a searing pain. He staggered, but then Foshtomi appeared beside him. She wrapped her arm around his hips.
Pritchard was holding Bobbi back from the forward door as she kicked and screamed, keeping her from the plane. Cam saw Bornmann on the inside of the small window in the door. Bornmann had taken off his suit, yet still wore his headset. He was shouting, too, but Cam couldn’t hear. “Shut up!” Cam yelled. “Shut up!”
“Let us in!” Bobbi screamed.
Ruth was at her most contagious, breathing and sweating out nanotech. Nearly all of it would stay inside her suit, yet there would also be a cloud of it around the dead man in the office. The mind plague would drift through the warehouse. Specks of it had probably wafted in with the Humvee, too. They might have only seconds, but there was no way for Cam to force his way inside. Shoot the lock? Then the plane itself would be open to the plague — but they could seal the holes with something. Cam had nearly convinced himself to fire when he saw Bornmann lift his hand to his ear, listening to his radio.
Bornmann opened the door.
Foshtomi squeezed her temples with both hands and cursed, “Shit! Oh shit! I should have just knocked that guy down, tackled him, anything. He could have had me.”
Cam didn’t blame her for what had happened. They were all making bad decisions, stupid with exhaustion, and Foshtomi‘s heart had been in the right place. She’d tried to protect Ruth.
The interior of the plane was utilitarian. Except for its snub cockpit, the Osprey was little more than a tube with a flat deck and bare struts on the curved metal walls. The wiring was exposed. There were no seats. It was outfitted for cargo or paratroopers, but Foshtomi found one of the only corners available, sinking down near the long, angled seam of the aircraft’s tail end.
“Shit! Oh shit,” she said.
So close, Cam thought. We were so goddamned close. We should’ve left Ruth in the car until she was immune.
But they didn’t know if Huff would succeed in retrieving the vaccine. The fact of the matter was that getting Ruth into the plane was a necessity. They were down to the last of their air. Very soon, more of the commandos would need to de-suit like Bornmann just to extend the time that one or two were able to remain protected, using the mostly depleted air tanks as a final reserve. Keeping everyone safe had been like juggling time bombs.
Cam stalked away from Foshtomi. There were no windows in the rear of the plane, just a few small portholes along its sides. He bent to gaze through the cockpit but saw only the warehouse doors. All of the action was taking place behind him. Bornmann said the commandos had immobilized Ruth and removed her helmet, watching to make sure she didn’t choke or bite her tongue. Deborah checked her vital signs, which were strong except for the poor pupil response they’d come to expect. Her brain was shutting down.
As soon as they had time, they planned to bring Ruth to one of the trailers outside the warehouse. The best of those RVs would become her shelter — but they couldn’t just leave her. She might wander away or hurt herself.
Someone else had to stay with her.
First they needed to decontaminate the warehouse again as best they could as well as Ruth’s laptop. General Walls, Ingrid, and another man were still in the cab of the Army truck. They also wanted to transfer their other gear, after which the commandos themselves would clean their suits and come aboard.
Cam paced up and down the plane like a man possessed. He would rather have been crucified than see this happen to Ruth. He’d been so cruel, keeping her at a distance. Why? He knew how short life could be. Every second together had been a treasure. Now they were left with one slender hope.
Bornmann was talking on his headset again, communicating with the people outside. Cam put his hand on his shoulder. Bornmann ignored him, so Cam tightened his grip until the other man turned with irritation in his eyes.
“What?” Bornmann snapped.
“We need to get into Los Angeles.”
They brought Walls and the others aboard without incident, except for Deborah, who stayed with Ruth, and Sweeney, who continued to stand guard outside the warehouse. Twice, Sweeney’s M4 barked, dropping zombies at the fence.
The plane was crowded. Everywhere, men spoke to each other in low tones, relieved to be out of their suits and masks. Cam stood with his arms around Ingrid, comforting the older woman even as he looked past her and shouted into the din.
“It’s the only way!” he said. “There’s no one else who knows nanotech, and Freedman—”
“This isn’t your call,” Bornmann said, stepping sideways to physically shield Cam from Walls and Rezac. They knelt on the deck with a radio and the two laptops.
“What else are you going to do?” Cam asked, speaking past Bornmann.
“Leave them alone. Let them work.”
“It’s too late!” Cam said. “Even if Huff makes it back with the vaccine, so what? You’ve got a tiny group of people and nowhere left to run.”
Minutes ago, Sergeant Huff had reported in again. Her team had found at least ten bodies inside the downed Chinese plane. All of them were hideously burned. Huff said she’d gathered blood and samples. Samples, Cam wondered. What did that mean? Had she taken an arm or someone’s insides?
The crash site was a trap. The plane must have gathered a high concentration of nanotech on its surfaces as it plunged through the sky. Possibly it had also carried the plague on board, like a bomber. Huff was careful to approach the wreckage herself in her yellow suit, ordering the rest of her team to maintain a distance of a hundred yards — but the wind was against them. Both of her soldiers who wore only biochem masks were infected. They turned on the third man. He broke a seal in his collar. Their courage was wasted. Huff had shot them all. Now she was driving south alone, unable to replace her dwindling air tanks. It was a job that required two people. She thought she could reach them, but Walls had ordered Sweeney into a Humvee to meet her.
In the meantime, Walls and Rezac continued to try to raise anyone on their radios or the satellite phone.
“We can still win this war,” Cam said.
“I have a sat overhead in three minutes,” Rezac murmured, and Walls said, “Dump it. Everything you’ve got.”
“Kendra Freedman designed both plagues and she probably built the second vaccine, too! What if we had that power on our side?”
“Enough,” Bornmann said. “That’s an order. Lang. Pritchard. Take him in back.”
“We could kill them all,” Cam said. “Listen to me! Freedman’s our best bet if you want to kill all of those chink motherfuckers.”
Something tightened in Lang’s face.
Cam didn’t think he’d upset him with the racial slur. The Chinese American must have endured a thousand slights and bad jokes. In fact, Cam thought Lang approved. The rage in Bill Lang’s eyes wasn’t directed at Cam but farther outward, at their enemy, as Lang glanced from side to side at the other men in the plane. Their acceptance must be incredibly important to him.
“This is our home,” Cam said. “This place is ours.”
“Lang, get him out of here or I’ll do it myself,” Bornmann said, but Cam wouldn’t have stopped even if he was in control of himself.
“Hundreds of thousands of people are dead, and all you want to do is hide?” he shouted.
Lang grabbed his arm. Lang had more to prove than anyone else, which was why he would obey orders to the last. Cam knew it was the others he needed to convince. “We can take everything back!” he said. “Colorado. California. What if Freedman can build a third plague or a new parasite?”
Walls rose to his feet, yet didn’t push into the knot of men. He didn’t have to. His presence alone was enough to draw everyone’s attention toward the front of the plane.
“This is personal for all of us,” Walls said. “You need to get your head straight.”
“You won’t do any good if you just run away!”
“We need the vaccine, and sharing it is our first priority. Someone has to survive.”
“For what? The vaccine won’t reverse the effects of the plague. It’ll only protect you if you’re inoculated before you get sick. Even if you save a hundred more people, so what? Then all you’ve got is enough of a crowd to watch you get down on your knees and surrender.”
“Sir,” Bornmann said, ready to defend Walls, but the general didn’t need his help.
“Think what you’re asking,” Walls said. “The Chinese hold all the cards. A suicide mission won’t change that. We need time to regroup.”
“No. This is the best time to try it, while they’re still shaken up. If you wait, you’ll just give them more time to get organized, too. Let’s hit the chinks now,” Cam said, using the insult like a knife. He had seen enough discrimination for the color of his own skin to feel angry and embarrassed at himself, but he wasn’t above using every available tool to convince them.
Religious hate might be the only option left to sustain these men. Without blind, unreasoning dogma, they were too battered and worn down to fight. Cam could see it in their faces. So could Walls. That was why the general wanted to let them rest and reassess, hoping for the miracle of making contact with other U.S. forces, but Cam was afraid that if they stopped moving even for a day they’d never get up again.
If he needed to invoke a race war, so be it. That was the reality of China’s bid for global domination — yellow versus white, brown, and black. The invaders were despised across America. No one was unaffected by fury or disgust. Cam only wanted to channel those emotions.
The firestorm in his head must be exactly what Ruth had felt at the end of the last war. He understood her hysteria now. If there was a God, this is what He wanted of Cam. The path was obvious. Once upon a time, men in caves in the Islamic world had motivated themselves against the colossal might of America in the same way, declaring themselves pure and righteous while condemning the West as the Great Satan. Now it had become their turn as the last holdouts against a far superior enemy. There wasn’t really any chance of winning. They could only pretend. Hunting for Freedman deep inside enemy lines would have been a madman’s scheme even before the missiles landed, reducing Los Angeles to a radioactive hell — but otherwise they were beaten.
Only fanatics would carry on.
“Kendra Freedman may be the last person left who can help us,” Cam said. “If she can reverse the infection, she’ll give us Ruth back, too. Then the two of them will massacre the fucking Chinese.”
“I think you want this for the wrong reasons,” Bornmann said. “For her.”
“What if he’s right?” Emma said softly, surprising them. Emma hadn’t spoken for hours, except to acknowledge orders, and Pritchard said, “Sir, we could split up.”
“I’ll go,” Foshtomi said. “I volunteer.”
“We will definitely split up,” Walls said, “probably into three groups. We need to be sure the vaccine gets out, and the plane will be a very visible target. Some of us will leave in the Humvees in opposite directions. One group will also be tasked with keeping Goldman alive.”
“I have a satellite,” Rezac said from her laptop.
“Send our files,” Walls said.
“Done. We have no other contacts.”
“What does that mean?” Bobbi whispered, and Medrano leaned toward her and said, “Exactly what you think. There’s no one else on our military nets.”
“Our first priority is photos of this area,” Walls said to Rezac. “Map it for a hundred miles in every direction.”
“Got it.”
“Then I want photos of Los Angeles,” Walls said, and Cam involuntarily raised both fists, elated and triumphant. He felt more than a little crazy, too, like an animal that had just torn itself from a trap. We’ll find her, he thought, as Walls said, “How long until we have a bird over the West Coast?”
22
Sweeney returned with Huff forty minutes later. Deborah helped them decontaminate both their suits, and then herself again — but she suggested it was impossible to clean the blood and tissue samples. Huff had splashed two canteens with gore and sealed several pieces of charred flesh in another. Bringing the canteens inside the plane would risk infecting everyone, because irradiating the blood to kill the mind plague would also kill the vaccine. Nor did they have any way to separate the two. That meant it would be a toss-up as to whether anyone without a suit would absorb the vaccine before the plague.
Cam volunteered to be the first to try it, earning another kind word from Emma. “You’re very brave,” she said, but Walls stopped him. “You know Freedman, don’t you?” Walls asked, and it was true that Cam had secondhand knowledge of her, which no one else could match. That put him in Walls’s elite with the other untouchables like their pilots, translators, and medics.
One of Foshtomi’s Rangers drew the short straw. His name was Ayers. Foshtomi volunteered herself instead, but Ayers refused. “It’s all right, Lieutenant,” he said.
Ayers walked out wearing his biochem mask and hood. Deborah produced a needle from a med kit. She wet it in the blood, then stabbed his forearm, repeating the process several times. Finally, Ayers took off his gear. He went to the warehouse door and walked outside, escorted by Sweeney, who reported every move on his suit radio.
“He’s okay,” Sweeney said. “It works.”
“What about Ruth?” Ingrid asked. “Cam? What in the world are we going to do about Ruth?”
They stood beside the plane, breathing in the acrid, dusty smell of the ash. The immunizations were done. The soldiers were removing their goggles and jackets and chatting in quiet relief, even laughing. Ingrid’s hazel eyes were sad. Cam hugged her again, but he couldn’t allow his heart to soften. He wanted to keep his rage. So while Ingrid nestled her face against his neck, he was rigid, with his chin up, which is why he saw Deborah approaching with a bloody canteen.
Deborah had stripped off her containment suit. She pointed in the direction of the RVs beyond the warehouse and said, “Do you two want to come with me?”
“Yes.”
“It’s good to see you again,” Deborah added, briefly embracing Cam herself. The gesture was uncharacteristic — but after so much death, all of them were more open and physical. Every word felt like good-bye.
The three of them walked outside as Bornmann and Pritchard rolled open the tall warehouse doors. Most of the others were already sorting through their vehicles, food, and other gear, unencumbered by the fear of infection. Bobbi glanced after Cam, but she’d gone to help Lang with three cases of water and didn’t break away. Maybe that was smart.
Deborah led them to one of the RVs, a huge, sand-colored Holiday Ramb
ler. “Brace yourselves,” she said. “This isn’t Ruth. Do you understand? This isn’t Ruth like you knew her.”
Cam heard a repetitive clunk clunk, clunk clunk from inside. What was it? The A/C or the plumbing? He met Deborah’s gaze and realized she was gritting her teeth.
“Okay,” he said.
Deborah pushed in the folding door and led them up the steep, narrow steps. Inside, the floor broadened. The luxury vehicle was nine feet wide with long, tinted windows and a lighter windshield. Behind the driver’s seat, tan couches and a wood table filled the front space. Cam wasn’t watching where he was going. He cracked his head on a low-slung TV, but didn’t take his eyes off of Ruth.
She was tied to a cabinet knob behind one couch, her hands drawn up behind her head. Sweeney did this, Cam thought. He couldn’t imagine Deborah binding her friend so thoroughly. It was an immobilizing position Ruth couldn’t outfox without hurting herself. That basic instinct seemed to work. She’d slumped partway off the couch, yet hadn’t fought the rope any further, although her ankle beat steadily against the couch’s baseboard. Clunk clunk. Clunk clunk. The rhythm was unending. Was she trying to signal them? If so, her memory was stunted and pathetic, limited to a few seconds. She was trapped in a loop. Clunk clunk. Clunk clunk.
She stank. Her clothes were filthy with ash, sweat, blood, and urine. Worse, she was drooling, and her eyes were twisted in their sockets.
“Oh,” Ingrid gasped. “Oh, no. Ruth, no.”
Cam didn’t move. His thoughts had been compressed into a sharp dark line of disbelief. It rocked him, but he held onto his sense of destiny.
“Try the vaccine,” he said. If Ruth was wrong, it would counter the infection. Deborah went to Ruth’s side — but Ruth was proved right, as always. They waited several minutes after puncturing her thigh with the bloody needle, yet there was no change in her vacant, animal face.
Ingrid cried. Deborah’s smooth, pretty features screwed tight as she battled her own tears. Cam’s feelings were strangely muted. This wasn’t the end. Ruth was alive, and she’d talked about how there appeared to be different stages of infection. She might wake up on her own tomorrow. Maybe it would take a week. The main thing was to be sure the Chinese weren’t in total control, so they couldn’t hurt or enslave her.
