by Tom Calen
“Bryce Glassion,” Mike supplied, though his voice cracked as he spoke.
“Bryce…” Erik turned the word over, as if trying to fit it into his memory. “Yeah, I couldn’t remember it.”
“It was a long time ago, Erik.”
“But, you knew it.”
Lifting himself from the hard ledge, Mike placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder as he spoke before leaving the roof. “I remember them all. Sometimes I wish I didn’t.”
* * *
“We still need to figure out who goes and who stays,” Matt added to the discussion. With the success of the ARC—Acoustic Restraint and Coercion—in subduing the Tils, the group gathered at the Fort Polk military base in Louisiana knew more of the devices were critical to an extended survival.
Lisa Velazquez, familiar with the development of not only the Tilian Virus but also the ARCs, claimed that more had been constructed and were housed in the secret facility at Guantanamo Bay. Having learned of her connections to the sinister Ira Project, Mike could not bring himself to place any trust in the woman. The existence of more ARCs was likely, and he did not need her corroboration to believe it.
“I’m the most familiar with the lab at Gitmo,” Lisa said. She had made the same pronouncement each time the group considered how to divide in order to achieve their two goals. The primary objective of infiltrating the Gitmo lab required Matt Locke’s participation as he was the only one skilled to navigate the seas. The second aim was to locate Paul Jenson and his team before they reached a scheduled rendezvous.
“I’m not letting you near that lab, or your old friend Marena,” Mike told her again with unmistakable force. He could tell Lisa was biting back a retort, but instead of loosing it, she simply lowered her gaze and remained silent. Pressing forward, he looked to Erik.
“How’s your shoulder?” he asked. Erik’s nearly month-old gunshot wound had thankfully remained infection free, but he was still uneasy putting him into action too soon.
“It’s fine,” Erik replied with a bit too much emphasis. Mike’s steady gaze, however, elicited further divulgence. “There some stiffness still, but I’m able to use the arm, Mike.”
Before Mike could speak again, a small voice reached the group from the doorway of the main room.
“I’m going,” Michelle announced. It was the first time since Andrew’s death that she had left her room, save for use of the bathroom. Unwashed, her hair hung limply about her shoulders, and her clothes bore the creases and wrinkles of many hours abed. Beneath her eyes, Mike could see the darkened circles and puffed skin brought about by the endless mourning of the previous weeks.
“Going where?” Erik asked her gently as he approached to help her into the room. Eating only minimally, her frame had thinned drastically and the weakness of her body was evident. Still, she shrugged aside Erik’s offering of support and slowly made her way to the table.
“Back. To New Cuba.” The words were delivered bare of any emotion, but Mike to see a cold anger in her eyes.
“Michelle,” Mike began. “It’s too dangerous, and you’re not in any condition to—”
“Could you guys give me a minute with Mike?” she cut in, asking the others without taking her eyes from him. Initially no one so much as twitched a muscle until he nodded shallowly to Erik. Michelle waited motionless for the room to empty, leaving her alone with Mike.
“Michelle,” he started again, but the frail woman spoke with a command that muzzled him abruptly.
“I’m going back, Mike. You need someone who knows the facility and I’ve been in it. Lisa can provide whatever details I’ll need to locate the ARCs.”
“Erik’s been inside, too,” Mike tried to reason with her. “And he is in better shape to make the trip.”
“Yes, he has. But he hasn’t been inside the Academy.” The Cuban Academy of Sciences building had been converted into the headquarters of the National Council that governed New Cuba. Mike knew Michelle had spent the better part of a year working in the building as an official of higher station. The importance of that fact, however, confused him and he asked her for the relevance.
“Because I can get to Duncan.” The barely-restrained fury in her eyes told Mike more than her words did.
“That’s not part of the plan. It’s too risky,” he told her.
“He’s the reason for all of this!” her voice rose sharply. “The virus, the aftermath, Andrew… it all goes back to him. He needs to pay.”
“I agree, and he will. But you’re talking about assassinating a member of the National Council. Even if you got close enough, it’s a suicide mission,” he could hear the pleading in his voice. “His guards will kill you or arrest you before you could even think about getting away.”
“And that’s my choice to make.”
Mike was stunned briefly by the coldness in her voice. Her eyes shone brightly against the pallor of her skin. It was a steely vengeance that emanated from her, a vengeance with which he was too familiar. He also knew there would be little to dissuade such a powerful drive. If there remained a piece of his heart yet unbroken from the long years of struggle and loss, he could now feel it crack and splinter as he understood the toll Andrew’s death had exacted from her. She’s become me.
Fighting back the sudden moisture in his eyes, he whispered softly to her. “Andrew wouldn’t want you to throw your life away like this.”
“Don’t use him to try and talk me out of this,” she snapped as she wiped away her own tears of sorrow and anger. “We’ve talked for so many years about finding a cure. Finding a way to stop this. But we’ve been going about it the wrong way… fighting the symptoms, but not stopping the cause. Adam Duncan is the cause.”
She was right, he knew. Even after the Tilian Virus laid waste to the world, even after a small pocket of survivors worked to rebuild a society, Duncan had continued his research, continued his work on the Ira Project. Perhaps sensing his acquiescence, Michelle offered her modifications to the mission.
“Matt and I will get the ARCs first. Then, he can bring them to you while I go after Duncan. He can’t help me with Duncan, and you know it. The ARCs are too important to risk him getting killed or captured by protecting me.”
With a voice no longer serving him, Mike could only nod his head in reluctant agreement. Erik’s words from the rooftop that morning whispered in his mind: There’s not many of us left now. He could not help but feel that he was soon to lose another.
* * *
Over the next two days, resources were divided among the two teams in preparation for their respective missions. The Fort Polk facility provided ample amounts of food and water, but it was far lacking in a greater need. The hasty escape from New Cuba allowed little time for the gathering of ammunition, and much of it had been spent in reaching the facility. A thorough search of the surrounding buildings had yielded some additional weapons, but the total fell far short of what Mike would have preferred. Much of the arsenal had been emptied by those that had survived the initial viral outbreak, and then by others, scavenging over the interceding years.
One boon of the military base however, was the obtainment of operable vehicles that had not been removed or stolen. Several Humvees were still in working condition, with one supporting a mounted .50 caliber machine gun. Perhaps the best find was a small water craft Matt assured the others could make the crossing to New Cuba, once it was towed the eighty miles to the Louisiana coast. Like ammunition, fuel was in short supply, but Mike believed each team would have enough to reach their separate destinations provided there were no forced excursions.
It was decided that the ARC, once removed from the broadcast tower, would be sent with Mike, Lisa, and Erik in their search for Paul. Matt and Michelle had a much shorter run on land thus decreasing their need for the device. The hunt for Paul and his team would be less specific and direct, though Lisa knew the planned roads the convoy would take.
The ease in readying vehicles and supplies, twas in stark contrast
to the unease amongst the group. Since learning of Mike’s decision to allow Michelle to travel to the island, Erik had yet to put off his mask of anger. He had shouted and argued vehemently with Mike before finally distancing himself from the group’s leader and placing a wall of silence between them. Michelle, though of better color and myopic in her tasks, was still possessed with bitterness and anger, made worse by Erik’s continued attempts to dissuade her from her course of action.
Even with the others accepting Lisa as one of their own again, Mike was unable to dislodge the feelings of mistrust and suspicion that seized him whenever she was within his line of sight. With the exception of Matt—and Mike’s small dog Gazelle, who bounded loyally alongside her owner—the other members of the team were rife with barely contained negativity. In all, he realized it was the least auspicious start to the journeys.
On the third morning, the vehicles were loaded with the last remaining bits of gear, and the group of five found themselves at the moment of departure. Though Mike expected Erik to make one last plea to Michelle, he instead wrapped her in a strong embrace for several minutes, as he whispered parting words in her ear. Matt and Mike exchanged handshakes, and the boat captain traded an awkward farewell with Lisa. Having no experience with her prior to the past month, Matt was clearly unsure how to engage with her.
After breaking his hold of Michelle, Erik joked lightly with Matt, and she stepped forward to Mike. Before he could speak, she gripped him in a tight hug that pushed the air from his lungs. He could hear the soft sobbing as she pressed her head against his shoulder. In that moment, his memory ripped back to the studious young girl that had sat in his class. The images of the years he’d known her flashed in a storm behind his tightly shut eyes. Her meekness when she asked for work that first morning of the virus, the undaunted perseverance in the early days of escape, her unending heart as she worked to ensure that first the mountain camp and then New Cuba was fed and nourished. The girl he knew—the woman he now held—had perhaps been the strongest of them all. Joy had been a fleeting sentiment over the years, but Mike Allard felt it now as he understood how lucky he was to have seen her survive and grow, a privilege he had been denied with so many others.
“You be careful,” he told her, feeling every bit the worried parent.
“I will.” As she pulled back from him, she looked up and searched his eyes. “You understand why I have to do this?”
“I do,” he answered with sincerity. “I just wish it hadn’t come to this.”
“Look after Erik for me,” she said with a wry grin. “He has a habit of getting himself in trouble.”
Laughing, Mike replied. “Some things never change.”
Michelle raised herself to her toes and placed a soft kiss upon his cheek. “You have to forgive Lisa,” she whispered in his ear. “She’s as much a victim in all this as we are.”
The farewells at an end, Mike watched as Michelle spared a moment to cuddle Gazelle before she and Matt boarded the Humvee. The truck, with boat in tow, rumbled to life and slowly made its way through the parking lot before disappearing along the tree-lined road. A funereal moment of silence passed before the three figures left behind loaded into the waiting vehicle and set out upon their own journey. Shifting the Humvee into gear, Mike thought with a mix of somber and expectant finality: The end is beginning.
Chapter Three
If not for the near constant bouncing of the vehicle, which apparently found every pothole along the road, Michelle could have fallen asleep in the passenger seat. It was all she seemed able to do as of late, sleep. Since Andrew’s death, a heavy weight had settled itself upon her spirit, exhausting her after even the most minimal of tasks. Her chest ached more each day, from both wracking sobs and emotional emptiness, and she wondered quite honestly if the sorrow would eventually overwhelm her. And if so, what was it waiting for? It was not until she settled upon returning to New Cuba and facing Duncan that the smallest flicker of purpose shone from the distant end of the dark tunnel of her mind. It was vengeance that drove her now, she realized, and there was a nagging fear that once repayment had been met, the void of sorrow temporarily staved off would consume her entirely.
The dark thoughts kept her silent during the drive, robbing Matt of any conversation he may have wished to pursue. So new to her world, Michelle was grateful that the man could read her mood. Perhaps because he was only recently added to the small circle of people with whom she could place her trust, she preferred his company to the others. With him, when she looked at his face or managed to find words, there were not the ceaseless reminders of Andrew. As much as she valued Erik, especially his refusal to leave her side in the days after, every part of him spoke of the shared memories. Selfish or not, she could not bear to see her pain, her loss, mirrored in the eyes of Mike, Lisa, and Erik.
“How far have we gone?” she asked Matt, the first she had spoken in over an hour.
Startled enough by her breaking of the silence to visibly flinch, Matt looked down at the Humvee’s odometer before answering. “Only forty-seven miles.” Between the crowding on the weather-worn roads and the slower speed their towing vehicle necessitated, little ground had been covered in the nearly two hours since they departed the military base. “Probably another few hours if we keep the same pace,” he continued. “Are you hungry? Do you want to stop for a bit?”
“No, I’m okay,” she replied with as much honesty as she could manage. “Unless you need to?”
“Nah, the sooner we’re on the water, the safer I’ll feel.”
“Did you grow up around boats?” Michelle realized, somewhat guiltily, that she knew little about her companion. From their night-shrouded escape from New Cuba, to the discovery of the military base and all that followed, Matt had simply been a presence, albeit one that had certainly assured her own survival.
“Yeah, my dad was the owner of a small marina in Miami. Well, he started out as a mechanic, but eventually bought the place a few years before the virus,” he told her. From the slight scratch in his voice as he spoke, Michelle remembered that everyone had their own set of painful memories. “We had a small house boat that we lived on when I was little. Couldn’t afford a real house, but the guy who hired my father let him keep the boat there for free.”
“That must have been amazing, though. Always on the water,” she said with an easy sigh. For Michelle, a life on the open seas, or simply on a beach, was overly romanticized, no doubt due to being raised quite poor in the land-locked state of Tennessee.
With a mild laugh, Matt explained. “It is now, but back then I was always jealous of my friends with backyards. I used to love going over to their houses and just feeling the grass on my feet. But, now I realize we had a much bigger backyard… the Atlantic.”
“You know, I had never been to the beach, I mean a real beach, until we left for Cuba.”
“No way! That was your first time to a beach? I can’t believe it. What did you think when you got there?”
“Well, we were being shot at and chased by Tils at the time, so it wasn’t really the best experience.” As she said the words, Michelle was surprised to feel the distantly familiar tug of a smile at the corners of her mouth. For the next while, she and Matt talked about youth, finding much commonality in the meager means by which both their families had lived. It was easy to share those stories with him since they were from a time before Andrew. The memories were not painful reminders of his absence.
As time passed unnoticed and the distance travelled increased, the scent of salt-water air steadily became more evident. Realizing she had talked more in the last three hours than in as many weeks, Michelle was surprised when the view from the vehicle’s windshield held the vast blue of the Gulf of Mexico.
Following the faded signs, Matt steered the armored truck through a maze of seaside streets until reaching the entrance of Sharky’s Marina, far smaller than massive ports she had grown used to in Havana. Several watercraft still bobbed restlessly, straining agains
t the aged and worn dock lines securing them to the docks. Many others, however, had succumbed to years of rain, wind, and storms. The tall mast of a sail boat stood several feet above the water, the rest of the ship submerged in the nearly clear waters. Evidence of a past hurricane was visible in the number of boats that had been deposited haphazardly along the parking lot. Where once stood a small building, likely a manager’s office, there was now a pile of shattered wood and glass.
With practiced precision, Matt backed the boat trailer down the concrete ramp until the vessel lifted from the trailer and floated on the water. Helping as best she could, but cautious not to get in his way, Michelle followed his soft spoken directions. Soon after truck and trailer were parked nearby, they both lowered themselves into the boat. Without hesitation, the craft’s engine started, and he angled the boat towards the open sea. Though Matt claimed it would survive the seven hundred mile direct crossing to New Cuba in one go, their lack of fuel forced a charted course that hugged the Gulf coast, refueling at other marinas along the way.
Beyond the shallow waters of the marina, he gave the boat more thrust and soon the water sliced apart. Sprays of sea water sprinkled Michelle’s face, quickly chilling her in the increased wind. Matt seemed unfazed however. A look of simple rightness covered his face as he stared out at the horizon. As the minutes passed, she began to understand his longing for the water. Even though land was still in sight, the threat of Tils evaporated at the water’s edge, and for the first time in years, she realized that the infected could not harm her. Even her time of ignorance in Havana had not held the same safety she now felt.
Shifting herself to avoid the mist coming up over the sides, Michelle moved to a dryer spot at the center of the boat’s rear deck. Her eyes followed the white lines of unsettled water that trailed in the craft’s wake. She watched, hypnotized, as the aquatic wound from the boat’s passing healed and returned to its unmolested wildness. With land off to her right, the view she studied was an endless plane of water save for one black speck in the distance. Several minutes passed before she broke away from the wake and climbed the short metal ladder to the boat’s bridge.
