by Tim Sullivan
"They're counting on us," said Jo.
"I know, but it's all so . . . so inchoate," Alex said. "I can't make much sense out of it."
"Not yet, anyhow." Jo smiled at him, and he thought at that moment that things might work out. But the next moment, his doubts returned.
"Claire is excited because I managed to throw off the colloid," Alex said. "But for all we know, it was weakened when it was forced out of your body. She seems to think that we can shake them through sheer will. I have my doubts about that."
"Oh ye of little faith," Jo said, laughing. "You've got to admit that we're better off than we were just a few days ago, Alex."
"Immeasurably."
"Well, let's just do what we can to help the war effort."
He put his arm around her. "Okay."
They walked to a room which they'd been staying in, with mattresses covering much of the floor. It seemed a good place for them to work on their new "powers."
Alex shut the door and they lay down. They were still for a little while.
"There's something I haven't told you," Alex said. "When I was infected, the colloids brought my loved ones back from the dead."
Jo's eyes widened. "Yes, they did it to me, too. My father and mother, and my husband. It was horrible."
"How can we fight them, knowing that our loved ones are alive in them?"
"We saw them die, Alex. They're not alive."
"But they are. Their memories, their emotions."
"That's all it is, just memory."
"No, there's more. They reached out to me, to what I thought."
"Impossible."
"No, it happened. I told myself that they were dead, too, but they're not. They're in Limbo."
Jo looked deeply into his eyes. "It's our responsibility to put them to rest."
She was right, of course, but Alex was hurt to think that these last remnants of his wife and child must be destroyed. "Why do you think the colloids preserved them?" he asked.
"Isn't it obvious? They had analyzed human emotional states thoroughly enough to realize the value of keeping these pitiful bits of our loved ones alive. It's nothing but a dirty trick."
Softly, Alex wept. Jo held him tight. "I'm sorry, Alex," she whispered.
"When you were infected," he said, "I thought that you didn't love me anymore. I know that you were being manipulated. Still, the memory of it is very painful."
"Oh, Alex, I'll always love you."
They made love, slowly, tenderly. And at last, as they came, Alex saw through Jo's eyes once again. This time he held onto the dark, round image of his own shoulder as she pressed her face against his chest. Determined to see more, he squeezed her so tightly that she cried out.
The image became clearer.
"Jo," gasped Jo.
She was not only seeing through his eyes, now she was Alex, making love to herself. And there was nothing for Alex to do but to become Jo. He filled that place in her that had been vacated, while she simultaneously entered him.
And he was her.
Even after they lay panting next to each other, each still retained part of the other's persona.
"They must have used emotions to broadcast to one another," Alex said. "Channeled human passions."
"I don't think they can communicate very well without the nervous systems of their hosts," Jo said. "That's why they don't want animals. Only a pretty sophisticated nervous system enables them to branch out."
"Yes, I got an image of a world where there were no higher animals. The colloids remained isolated and died out. They broadcast as much as they could, and the others were in a kind of one-way communication with them until the last of them disappeared."
"They're in contact with other planets that they've invaded," Jo said. "That much is clear."
"Do you realize what this could mean?" Alex said, excitement growing inside him.
"Yes, that we could learn more about the galaxy by just lying here than all the space probes could provide in centuries, maybe even millennia."
"It seems as though we really can do that, doesn't it?"
They lay together, listening to each other's heart beat, thinking about this. At last Alex spoke.
"Maybe we should be worried about things a little closer to home right now, though."
"What do you mean?"
"I think you know."
"Alex, you know where the colloids went, don't you?" This was not a question.
"Yes," Alex said, "and we have no choice but to go there, too."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"There's no time to talk about this," Alex insisted, grabbing the attention of everybody in the briefing room. "Their mobilization means that they've already started."
"Started what?" Elvin demanded. Like most of the others, he was content to live here at the armory in peace rather than tangle with the colloids once again.
"Creating a . . . superbeing, for want of a better term."
"A superbeing?"
"Yes, a kind of colloid-human hybrid. This has been their plan all along."
"Yes, it makes sense," Claire agreed. "They have been analyzing their victims, and preserving the tissues for their own purposes."
"They're going to make a creature of their own," said Jo, "using the human race as their modeling clay."
"An abomination," Samuel intoned.
"Well," Alex said, "it's probably safe to say that it won't conform to our idea of a bouncing baby."
"We've got motor vehicles," said Jo, "and Ronnie can show us where there's gasoline. We've got to start moving today."
"But where are we going?" Polly asked.
"New York City. It has the largest amount of material for them to work with in North America, and there's plenty of sea water available, which they need for the birth."
"One question," Elvin said.
"Shoot."
"Alex, how do we know you and Jo are completely clean? You were both infected, and you might still be. This could all be a load of bull designed to get us killed."
"Do you want to take the chance?" Alex said, his anger flaring. "Do you want to stay here while the colloids create a race of adaptable new creatures to carry on their work? No one's going to force you to come with us."
"Who's going to join us?" Jo cried.
"I will," said Riquelme, silent up to now.
"Me, too," said Polly.
"I will," Claire said.
Within a few seconds, all of them had agreed to risk it—even Elvin. He shook his head as he said, "Why not?"
Alex quickly began to explain his strategy. Nobody among them knew how to drive a tank, and there wasn't time to learn, so only jeeps and trucks would be taken from the armory. And Ronnie's motorcycle would come in handy for reconnaissance, since it was fast and maneuverable.
They would stock all the weapons they could carry, including some of the remaining canisters of napalm, a mortar, and a flamethrower. M-16s would be passed out, with all the ammunition in the armory's stores. This was a last ditch effort, and they all knew it. They must throw everything they had at the enemy this time, and hope that they would emerge triumphant. Alex and Jo knew that this birth would not be the only one, but they also knew that there were bands of guerrillas in other parts of the world, willing to fight until they were all dead or until the earth was reclaimed. There was no middle ground, no compromising anymore.
This was either the end or the beginning.
First, they had to gas up all the vehicles that would carry the thirty or forty guerrillas to New York. Alex sent Riquelme with Ronnie, carrying a five gallon drum strapped onto his back. The gasoline they brought back would be more than enough to get the rest of the vehicles down to the refinery where the cache of fuel was located.
While Riquelme and Ronnie were gone, the ordnance was cleaned and oiled, and ammunition was doled out. There was little talking today. Indeed, now that their offensive was about to begin, the guerrillas seemed to be glad that they would again see some acti
on. They had welcomed the peace, but they all had sensed that it was deceptive. The colloids were not about to share the Earth with them, and they knew it.
There was no way of telling how long it would take to reach New York. It was a mere one hundred miles away, but nobody knew what the condition of the roads was. That was one reason why jeeps might come in handy.
Alex really didn't have any idea of what they would do, even if they got to New York in time. They would strike as effectively as they could, and do as much damage as possible. But their chances of victory were slim.
The guerrillas would most likely all be killed.
* * *
Ronnie and Riquelme returned after an hour or so, and the gasoline they brought with them was doled out to the seven vehicles that they had decided to take with them. After sitting for three years, the motors were not eager to start, but a few drops of gasoline in carburetor valves and a push start downhill got the requisite number of jeeps and trucks running. They were driven to South Philadelphia posthaste.
While the vehicles were gone, plastic containers were filled with water, and food was rationed. The guerrillas sat eating in grim silence, looking forward to their mission. When they had awakened this morning, they had expected another quiet day of uncertainty, just like the preceding days. And now they were about to embark on a mission that might very well cost them all they had left. Alex hoped that they enjoyed their beans.
"Maybe next spring, we can plant a garden in that lot up the street," Riquelme said. "Maybe grow us some fresh vegetables and fruits."
"Yeah, right," Elvin grunted.
"You don't sound very optimistic, Elvin," said Polly.
"I'm not."
"Then don't come with us."
"I said I'm coming, and I meant it," Elvin said slowly and emotionlessly.
"Try to make the best of it, then, will you?"
Elvin seemed a little surprised to be upbraided in this fashion, but he said nothing. Alex knew that Elvin would perform when the time came, but he did like to complain. There was no need for the others to listen to it. Not this time.
They sat in the great hollow space of the motor pool, making coffee on a Coleman stove and speaking only when necessary. Alex was relieved when he heard the roar of motor vehicles in the distance.
Five jeeps and two trucks pulled up to the armory, followed by a dejected looking Ronnie.
"The kid was wrong," a new guy named Judd said. He had driven one of the armored cars. "There wasn't even enough gasoline left to fill all seven tanks."
"How much did you get?" Jo asked anxiously.
"Less than half a tank in that last one."
"We'll siphon a little out of the other tanks. It'll probably be enough to get us there."
"I'm sorry, Jo," Ronnie said. "It seemed like a lot of gas to me. But I guess I was wrong."
"It was a lot of gas when you were alone," Jo said.
"Sure as hell wasn't what we expected," Judd said bitterly.
"Where do you get off with an attitude like that?" Jo demanded. "Ronnie could have kept all the gas for herself, you know."
Judd backed off, and Ronnie looked appreciatively at Jo.
"Listen, everybody," Alex said, after witnessing the exchange, "we're all working together. If somebody fucks up, they fuck up. Don't rag them about it. This isn't a picnic we're organizing here, we're going to fight the son of a bitches who've taken our world away from us. Maybe we didn't used to think it was much of a world, but it was the only one we've ever had. We were the losers, the street people, the schizophrenics, the addicts, and the heavy-duty neurotics. Now we're the last hope of the human race. We all know what that means. We've got to give it everything we've got. We've got to be willing to die for the future of our planet. I know better than any of you, except for Jo, what the colloids are really like. I had one inside me, and I still feel what it did to me. The only thing we can do to save ourselves is to destroy them, because they'll never leave us in peace. They believe that we'll just repopulate and crowd them out if they allow us to survive. They don't want to share the Earth, they want to own it. I say we won't let them."
Alex's voice had been rising in pitch, and the others now let out a chorus of approving shouts.
"Let's hit them hard!"
This time their shouts were deafening, as they piled into the armored cars and jeeps, started the engines, and turned onto Market Street. At the ruins of City Hall the little convoy turned left and made its way to Race Street. A few minutes later they were driving up the interstate highway, where Alex had marched with the army of the infected.
Alex drove Ronnie's motorcycle at the head of the column, Jo riding behind him. Ronnie hadn't protested; she rode with Riquelme and Polly under the canvas top of the first jeep. The air was cold and the clouds were low.
They drove at fifty miles per hour, Alex watching out for potholes and damage to the asphalt, tears coming to his eyes because of the powerful wind. They left the city behind in a few minutes, the autumn brown Pennsylvania hills undulating on either side of them. They passed a shrine on the east side of the highway, a marble statue of the Virgin Mary. The Virgin's head was missing.
As they drove steadily toward the north, the first snowflakes of winter began to fall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Forty miles into New Jersey, they had to slow down. The pavement had been blasted during the war, and they had to drive overland for a few miles. Fortunately, the terrain was not treacherous, and they soon found a road that parallelled the Jersey Turnpike. They followed it, steering around the many potholes and wide cracks in the asphalt.
The snow hadn't amounted to much, though it, too, had slowed them down for a few miles. As they cruised through deserted hamlets and untended farmland, it occurred to Alex that this much noise had not been heard in these parts for at least two years. Their convoy boomed over the hills and announced their movements in advance. The Harley alone made a terrific racket. Except for the occasional staccato din of gunfire, they had lived in a quiet world for many months. The change was exhilarating.
Alex brought the Harley around a big, looping curve. He came very near to a collision with the hulks of four cars that had been pulled out into the road. Behind the junkers were several men and women armed with rifles and shotguns. Alex pulled up within a few yards of the makeshift barricade and raised his hand. The convoy came to a halt behind him.
"Hold it right there!" a man shouted from behind a dented SUV. His breath steamed out of his bearded face as he spoke. "We'll shoot if you come any closer!"
"Don't shoot," Alex said in as calm a voice as he could manage under the circumstances.
"You go back the way you came," the bearded, slender man said.
"We've got to get through," Alex said.
"Why?" their interrogator asked suspiciously.
"We've got a war to fight."
The bearded man squinted. "The war's been over for a long time. Haven't you heard?"
"We're starting a new one."
"With who?"
"Not with you. With the colloids."
"They're gone." But in spite of his words, the barrel of the bearded man's shotgun moved slightly to one side, much to Alex's relief. Perhaps he was getting through to this guy. "We're all that's left around here."
"The colloids are only a few miles away," Alex said. "And they're not finished with us yet."
The bearded man glanced at his companions, and then back at Alex. "How do you know that?"
"I know."
For some reason, that non-answer seemed to satisfy him. Now the shotgun was pointed at the ground, instead of at the convoy. "Just you and these few people are gonna fight 'em alone?" he asked.
"Yeah. We're going to be seriously outnumbered," Alex said. "But we've got a lot of firepower."
"Looks like you've got half the goddamn army back there," the bearded man said, gesturing at the convoy. "Where the hell did you get the gas?"
"There was a little left in
a refinery in South Philadelphia," Alex said. "We used the last of it to get this far."
The bearded man came out from behind the SUV. Holding the shotgun in one crooked arm, he walked toward Alex and extended his hand. "I'm Pat Crowley," he said. "That's my son Jack there, and these folks are the only survivors we know of in Jersey."
"Alex Ward." The man's handshake was firm. "Do you know if there are any roads open all the way to New York?"
