Plague Zone p-3

by Jeff Carlson

  I was glad to serve, Jia thought as he drew his sidearm and presented the weapon to Qin, grip first. With the same motion, he also bowed.

  “Twenty minutes ago, our nanotech labs failed to check in on schedule,” Qin said, surprising him.

  “Sir?”

  “Perhaps their radio failed,” Qin said. “Their buildings might have fallen in an aftershock. Or there may be a larger problem. We need to be sure.”

  There may be weaponized nanotech drifting from the site, Jia thought, completing the fear that Qin left unmentioned.

  “I considered diverting my helicopter,” Qin said, “but my mission here is critical and we were only seven men including our pilot. I believe you’ve gathered a second helicopter at this base, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Before the plague year, the PLA had begun a major new initiative to increase their helicopter fleet. Even so, they’d lagged far behind more modern armies. Only a handful of Z-9 and Z-10 birds came with their invasion force, and they lacked enough pilots to fully take advantage of the helicopters they’d gained in the war. A functioning, crewed helicopter was priceless, but earlier today Jia had ordered one of the very few aircraft in the region to himself in hope of salvaging more electronics from other bases. They’d seen limited success, yet this decision also seemed well fated, so he risked a question.

  “Are the nanotech labs nearby?”

  “They’re less than an hour from this base — in San Bernadino, against the mountains,” Qin said.

  This information had been kept from Jia. He’d only seen reports on the scientists’ progress, but he understood why he’d been closer to the program than he’d guessed. There had been quarantine protocols in case of disaster. He was inside those lines. Before the missiles fell, he would have been able to reach the labs if necessary.

  “We may bomb the site,” Qin said. “I want you to lead a strike team to the labs first. Secure our research and our people there, too. Prove yourself again. There are some who want to strip you of your commission, but you are essential to the MSS and we always take care of our own.”

  Jia’s pulse quickened at the inflection in Qin’s words. We. Something had been nagging at Jia since they met, but he’d been too upset to realize it. Now the older man grazed the back of Jia’s hand with his fingertips. The gesture was fleeting. Qin’s hand was already gone, but there was a watchful light in his eyes, and no Chinese officer would have touched another like this in normal conversation.

  Qin Cho was homosexual, too.

  The realization went through Jia like clean sky breaking through the ash. He knows my secret, Jia thought. He shares it! Then, even more startlingly, He could have me if he wanted. He owns me. And I him.

  Jia’s pulse quickened. Qin was not unattractive. His authority more than compensated for his stout, older body, as did the experience in his eyes. The danger was its own forbidden thrill. Jia could barely imagine a time or a place to share the other man’s bed, but the prospect was unforgettable.

  He’d long worried that his superiors knew of his sexuality and were ready to use it against him. What if their plan was even more layered than he’d guessed? If his attacks failed, they could use his deviancy to condemn him — but if he succeeded, they would be certain that the lead officer was one of their own.

  There are more of us in hiding! Jia thought. At least, he wanted to believe Qin wasn’t the only one like him, because he could barely contain his excitement.

  Did their curse supersede their other loyalties? Probably not. But it might create a phantom power bloc within the Ministry of State Security. The most hawkish elements of the MSS had risen to leadership. A few men in key positions could affect the fate of a nation, and homosexuals would be driven by the deepest motivation to succeed as well as the greater goals of China. They were also less likely to be constrained by concern for any wives or children.

  What if their shame and their pride were ultimately responsible for the aggression that led to the war? Or the development of the mind plague itself? Could they hope to use nanotech to rewire themselves and become normal hetero males someday? Was that even possible?

  If Jia had been reported when he was young, that information must have been intercepted and suppressed by someone who was always looking for more recruits. Then they’d watched him. Jia couldn’t evaluate how high their control might be felt. Qin had been a senior general even before the missiles fell, and he wouldn’t have come into the quarantine zone himself if he were the topmost surviving member of their brotherhood.

  Jia yearned for more power for himself. Recognition. Acceptance. Even if it was in secret, to be welcomed by people who shared his stigma was irresistible.

  This is how he seduces me, Jia thought. They would be like lovers. Whether they literally pleasured each other or not was almost beside the point. It was the hateful truth that committed them.

  “I am honored, sir,” Jia said. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Then you understand?”

  “I believe I do, sir. Yes, sir.”

  Qin had studied Jia’s face as he worked through his real izations in a flurry, watching every perceivable shock and emotion. He must have felt the same when they approached him, Jia thought. How long had the cabal existed? Years? The notion made his head swim. He felt as if he’d found himself on a ladder above a vast pit. One misstep would kill him — but there was also an exhilarating sense of attachment. Some day perhaps he would be looking down at another man, helping him up, too.

  Jia grinned, but the older man’s face darkened as if rejecting him. Did he think the grin was flirtatious? A ploy?

  Did I mean it that way? Jia wondered.

  “You know there was an American flight into California four hours ago,” Qin said.

  “Yes, sir. We shot it down, sir.”

  “They were using Second Department codes. The timing seems suspicious. The detachment guarding the labs is not unsubstantial. A full platoon of Black Tigers resided with the science teams. They were also equipped with two helicopters of their own. If their radios failed, why haven’t either of those helicopters come for help?”

  “The American plane was destroyed, sir.”

  “What if there were more? Could the Americans have slipped another aircraft through your lines?”

  “Yes, sir.” Jia was formal now. He’d seen his mistake. His relationship with Bu Xiaowen had suffered from the same quandary, which was precisely why homosexuality was outlawed by the PLA. Favoritism was a weakness. So was forced submission and the resentment that might come with rape. If the cabal was as well entrenched as Jia hoped, they must be even stricter in demanding a hands-off policy among themselves. It was a schizophrenic but vital law, denying their very nature. Were there exceptions? Covert liaisons? There must be. But at what penalty?

  “I realize you were half-blind,” Qin said.

  Jia nodded. Their radar net was still only at 40 percent, and, in too many places, orbital surveillance was blocked by fallout.

  “We don’t expect the impossible,” Qin said.

  “No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “But all of us will suffer if there are American Special Forces at those labs.” Qin emphasized one word again. Us. The signal was unmistakable.

  If the cabal had started the war, their destinies would be tied to the nanotech. They would live or die with it. The momentum they’d gained from the mind plague and its spin-off technologies would either further their rise to prominence, or, if the research was lost, the sudden lack of potential could leave them susceptible to new bids for power from more conventional elements in the military.

  “Don’t fail us,” Qin said, quieting his voice. Then his fingertips brushed Jia’s forearm again as he appraised the younger man.

  It was an invitation. Qin could protect Jia from the leaders outside their cabal if he succeeded. Bringing back the scientists and the nanotech would help offset the failures they perceived in Jia’s conduct… if he really knew what he was ge
tting into.

  Jia began to have second thoughts. What if Qin was playing him? There might not be a cabal after all, only Qin. The general could be running an unsanctioned operation and using Jia for his own purposes. Jia hoped not. If an uncontrolled nano weapon had silenced the labs, he might die as soon as his helicopters flew into the area… but if a cabal existed, even his death would serve them by warning them to contain the nanotech by any means necessary, even nuclear, thus limiting the damage to their political strength. He would be a part of their legacy. And if there were enemy soldiers inside California, Jia would welcome a chance to punish the Americans with his own hands.

  Either way, Qin owns me, he thought, stiffening into a salute. “I’ll have my strike team assembled in five minutes, sir.”

  Cam tucked the penlight against his uniform when he heard helicopters, smothering its white beam before lifting his head from beneath a Ford pickup truck. “Choppers,” he said. “Two, maybe three.”

  Alekseev didn’t climb out from under the vehicle. “I am hearing them,” he said. “Let me finish.”

  “We don’t want to get caught in the open.”

  “They will go to your Saint Bernadine first. Give me the light.”

  Cam shut his mouth. There was no sense in agitating someone with his fingers in a block of C-4. Alekseev had wedged a fistful of plastic explosive against the Ford’s driver-side rear wheel, where it would blow upward through the axle and truckbed. Cam aimed the light below the truck again, keeping his head turned the other way. Unfortunately, his night-vision was awful after watching Alekseev work.

  They weren’t concerned about anyone sneaking out of the rubble. The Chinese might have garrisoned other troops nearby, or maybe a few men had survived Kendra’s attacks, but moving silently through the debris was impossible.

  Cam was able to discern most of the ruins immediately surrounding him in the weak halo of the penlight. Within five yards, the ash-colored wreckage faded into the ash-colored gloom. It was silent, too, except for the falling whisper of the dust, which reminded Cam of snowstorms and skiing and better days. He even enjoyed his melancholy, because he knew this small peace couldn’t last.

  The helicopters pulsed out of the northwest, vibrating across the city. Cam felt the noise in the lumber and glass beneath his boots. Somewhere to his left, he heard the clink of bricks as a dune collapsed.

  Cam and Alekseev had been hustling through the mayhem on the west side of the school for most of an hour, risking the penlight after Cam opened his cheek on a jutting length of wood. They’d both fallen several times, bruising their hands and knees. Medrano, alone, was on the north. Obruch had the east and southern sides where their defenses would be the weakest. Nor did they expect much chance to reinforce each other if necessary. The perimeter was too big. Cam had accompanied Alekseev less as a guard than as a student. He might need to know how to wire the plastic explosives himself.

  “They’re down,” Cam said as the tremor of the aircraft briefly magnified, then cut off as the helicopters landed at Saint Bernadine. With the change in sound, his pulse deepened, too, finding a familiar calm. Beneath it, he felt a fresh edge of determination that was both welcome and unwanted. The waiting was over.

  It won’t take them long to realize no one’s there, he thought. “We’d better start back. Save whatever you have left.”

  “Da. I’m done.”

  At each place they’d stopped, first Alekseev had shaped the off-white clay. Then he’d eased a thin cylinder into the explosives and set the tiny digital readout near its top. The cylinders were frequency-specific remote control blasting caps. The initiator was an olive drab clamshell like a small lunchbox. Most of it was nothing but battery, a blunt antenna, and shock-absorbent steel. The bottom face held a digital display and a simple twenty-three button keyboard. The first twenty were square. The next three were rectangular and read ARM, CANCEL, and FIRE. It was American gear that Alekseev’s people had scavenged during the first war.

  Seeing those words in Alekseev’s hands was strange. Just a day ago, they would have been at each other’s throats. Now they were friends. Cam didn’t like it, but he needed the other man.

  As he worked, Alekseev had keyed each blasting cap to one button at frequencies between 1000 and 3000 megahertz. Medrano used 4000 to 5000, Obruch 6000 to 7000. Each of them would be able to detonate the others’ charges if necessary, including Cam, who carried his own initiator. Their best hope of buying time would be to appear as if a significant force had occupied the campus. That meant bombs wherever they couldn’t direct their guns. Most of those charges would be small. Alekseev hadn’t brought as much C-4 as he would like — but they had other surprises.

  They also hoped the Chinese would be hamstrung by the fear of damaging their labs and scientists. The Chinese probably didn’t know those people were dead. Alekseev planned to fake a hostage situation. With any luck, they could string out their negotiations until Kendra infected them all.

  Deborah flinched but said nothing when the helicopters’ beat reverberated through the tent. Instead, she watched Kendra. Then something pattered against the black plastic sheeting above them. The debris slid down two sides of the tent, stroking it like fingers and odd faces. Was the building itself cracking in the new sound? Did Kendra even notice?

  The skinny, bedraggled witch had frozen ten minutes ago. She said nothing. She did nothing. She only stared at the machining atomic force microscope. Deborah was afraid to jostle her, but how long could they just stand here?

  The black tent held them like a shroud or a veil. It seemed much smaller than fifteen-by-twenty feet. The walls shone in the halogen lamps, crisscrossed with shadows from the equipment and themselves. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if the plastic wasn’t opaque or if they had a radio or someone to talk to on the outside.

  Deborah’s shoulder hurt. Her face. Her chest. At least there was water. Medrano had brought two gallon jugs from the labs’ kitchen before he taped the plastic shut, and Deborah used one to wash her own face and neck and Kendra’s bone-tight skin, too, caring for the dull-eyed witch as if she was a young girl or a doll. It seemed to revive her. For a while, Kendra had been sharp, multitasking like a different person altogether. Their first thirty minutes together had been harried and productive as Kendra skimmed through binders and sample cases, snapping over her shoulder at Deborah as she described the Mandarin characters she sought.

  They’d found early models of the vaccine. They inserted one substrate after another into the MAFM, Kendra using Deborah as her hands, talking to her, thinking with her. Deborah was impressed by her momentum. Kendra identified the fifth and eighth samples as ideal. Then she’d sketched on the notepad, solidifying her concepts. Deborah thought the drawing looked like a tadpole. It had one long-necked curl above an oval body, meant to swim and hunt, but first Kendra needed to build it and she’d grimaced when two laptops denied her, lacking the necessary passwords. At last she’d accessed the third, mumbling in Chinese with a laugh. That was the first hint something was going wrong. Her movements became stuttered, even manic. She spoke to Deborah again — in the wrong language.

  Kendra had brought up twenty files and discarded fifteen more while Deborah struggled to grasp their significance, recognizing nothing. The other woman’s mind simply outpro cessed her own, but it was also fragmenting at that speed. “We can program the MAFM to assemble a bastardized nano from preexisting work,” she’d said. “We’ll save hours. But first I need to… What if we… No.”

  Then silence. Kendra stopped. Deborah didn’t know where she’d gone. Each breath felt like pressing on eggshells. Deborah thought she could bring Kendra back with a word or a touch, but what if that was a mistake? She might disrupt whatever calculations were taking place. Above all, it was important not to frighten the ugly witch.

  They couldn’t rely on her, and Deborah wondered what Kendra would do when the shooting started.

  27

  Jia’s Z-9 lifted away from the hos
pital as he finished his radio call. “Our people at point one were killed by enemy action,” he said through heavy static, glancing at the Elite Forces on either side of him. “I say again, our people at point one were killed by enemy action, over,” Jia said, inciting his men as much as confirming his report. In the faintest green light reflecting from the cockpit instruments, their eyes were beautiful, feral and bright.

  The Z-9 was a small-bodied aircraft. Jia had only five soldiers in addition to the pilot and copilot, both of whom were commandos themselves. The other chopper also held eight men. Jia would have preferred an army, and he’d minimized any risk to his troops after their first pass over Saint Bernadine. The evidence had been grotesque even at a distance. Through night-vision goggles, they’d seen liquefied corpses all over the courtyard and an overturned Z-9 in the rubble nearby.

  One of the dead had drawn his sidearm. That was enough for Jia. The corpses looked melted, and nobody fought runaway nanotech with a pistol. Qin was right. Impossibly, Qin was right. The Americans had infiltrated far into the Los Angeles basin, surprising the lab personnel. Most likely the Americans were already gone, fleeing with invaluable data and prisoners.

  Where? How?

  The anger Jia felt was unseemly, directed as his own people as much as the enemy. He could have protected this place if he’d known it was within reach. The men above General Qin had no right to blame him for this loss, but they would. It made him feel ever more attracted to Qin’s cabal.

  Jia had ordered both helicopters down only to preserve his fuel, landing in reasonably stable depressions in the wreckage. Then he’d dispatched a three-man team to scout the enormous hospital building. He hated to linger, but they needed to clear this site first. It was the higher priority of the two.

  His troops had returned in ten minutes and confirmed his first impression. There were no survivors. Inexplicably, though, there was a significant amount of gear, briefcases, and laptops stacked in the hospital’s lobby. Jia turned this information over and over in his head as they droned south. Why would the Americans leave this material behind? Even if their aircraft had been unable to carry it all, why not destroy it?