by Tim Sullivan
A few of the New York guerrillas permitted themselves to laugh at this facetious question.
"No, they went to a far better place than New Jersey," Alex said.
More of them laughed at his reply.
"We'd like to send them all there," Jo said.
"Sounds good to me," the black woman said, sticking out her hand. "I'm Shina."
Alex shook her hand and introduced himself and Jo. "We come from Philadelphia."
"I hear the weather's nice down there this time of year," the wild-eyed man said, eliciting more laughs.
"Very tropical," Alex replied.
"So when do we get started?" Shina asked.
"The sooner the better," said Jo.
The sun was already setting over the ruins of Manhattan. "Tonight?" asked Shina.
"We have to find out where they're making their baby," Alex said.
"Baby!" several of the New York guerrillas chorused in surprise.
"That's right. They're making a new creature to rule the Earth when they're gone."
"Holy shit," an unwashed soul who could have been a man or a woman—or neither—croaked. Alex did not care to indulge in thinking about the reasons for the colloid's rejection of this person. An ally was an ally.
"They're making it out of the tissues of the people they've eaten," Alex said. "Out of themselves."
"What the fuck . . . ?" another of the New York guerrillas said. "How do you know this?"
"I found out the hard way," Alex said. He remembered the difficulty he had had with the New Jersey people, and said, "but there's no time to explain now. We have to get to this thing before it's too late."
"Are you with us?" Jo asked.
"I am," Shina assured her. "The rest of these dudes can make up their own minds."
"What do you say?" Alex asked them.
"I say all right," the androgynous person said.
"Me, too," said a woman.
"What have we got to lose?" the wild-eyed man said.
There were seventeen of them in all, and every one of them was willing to go along. Alex was grateful for that; even if these people were poorly armed, they were survivors.
"Did you see the colloids come out of the tunnel?" he asked.
"Yeah," Shina said. "Like a river of shit with a mind of its own."
"Which way did they go?"
"South."
"Toward the waterfront," Alex said. "Of course."
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Moving through the ruins of Manhattan was not always easy. Like Philadelphia, the city had been devastated by the ineptitude of the Army. Nobody in the White House, Congress, or the military had suspected that the colloid "virus" was really an invasion from space. But it hadn't really mattered; no particle beam could have shot down mircroscopic viral cells from space, even if those in power had realized what was happening. The most heavily populated areas suffered rampant epidemics. Washington was no exception, and so the government had folded in a matter of months. The military had then taken over, declaring martial law and futilely attempting to wipe out the cities, which were perceived by military intelligence as the core—if not the cause—of the infestation.
As a result, the stone and concrete colossi of New York had fallen like dominos during the war.
Whatever the military strategy had been, there was a lot more rubble to contend with than in Center City Philadelphia. At times it seemed like mountain climbing, as they scaled huge mounds made up of limestone chunks, twisted steel girders, and crushed automobiles. Their progress was slow, especially with the arsenal lashed to the log litter, and the darkness was soon upon the silent city streets.
"Think we'll reach South Ferry by dawn?" Alex asked Shina as he helped her down from a particularly large block. "Maybe we can take the subway tunnels."
"No, they're flooded. We'll have to go above ground. When we get down toward the Village, things might not be so raggedy-ass."
"I hope you're right." It made sense, though. The buildings in Greenwich Village were not on the same cyclopean scale as those in midtown Manhattan, but who could guess what other obstacles they might encounter. After all, the colloids knew that the guerrillas were on the way.
"It might be wise to get some rest tonight," said Jo as she joined them.
"Can we risk it?" Alex said. "How can we know how close the colloids are to success? They might even have succeeded already."
"Well, if they have," Shina pointed out, "we can still kill the baby, can't we?"
"Maybe. We don't know. We're walking into this blind."
"Then we've got as good a chance tomorrow as we have tonight."
"Maybe so."
"Unless you can prove otherwise," Jo said, "then we should go ahead and get some rest, like I said before."
Alex nodded. His sense of urgency prevented him from being enthusiastic, but he had to admit that they weren't likely to function very well in the morning, exhausted as they were. Still, the residue of colloid memory made him believe that they should not hesitate even for a moment. "I know you're right, Jo, but I still want to keep moving."
Jo looked at him, the moonlight reflecting in her beautiful eyes. She understood his fear at that moment; Alex was certain of it. Was their telepathic bond working even while they were not making love? Only time would tell, he supposed, but he liked to think that it might be so. "You understand why we have to keep going, don't you, Jo?" he said.
"Of course." She smiled at him, but he knew that she was frightened. They were fighting for something so large that none of them could really grasp it, not fully. The human race, who had cast them out, now relied on these few losers to take the world back from the invaders. The skirmishes they had engaged in up to now would be as nothing to this final battle, he sensed. Would it be a futile gesture? Or would they salvage their world for future generations? Alex had a headache from thinking about it, and his limbs were heavy with exhaustion. Nevertheless, he pressed on through the night, praying that they would reach the tip of the island in time to stop the colloids.
They had to.
The hard part was moving the boxes of ammunition, batteries, heavy weapons, and tanks of flammable fluids over the rubble. The people they had picked up in New Jersey and Manhattan made a great deal of difference; Alex was certain that the Philadelphia guerrillas would not have been able to carry the stuff half this far alone. He thanked God that they hadn't been forced to discard any of it. They would need every last round when push came to shove.
The moon rose high overhead as they struggled across the ruins of the city, Shina and her bunch showing Alex and the guerrillas the way. They were moving steadily toward South Ferry in spite of the constant obstacles; indeed, all of Manhattan seemed to conspire in an effort to prevent them from getting to their destination on time.
But Shina showed them some byways through the rubble that saved valuable time. She had moved around in the presence of the colloids without being captured or killed for three long years, and she seemed to know every last nook and cranny of the wrecked city. Alex had never been a religious man, but it almost made him believe in divine intervention. At least he could believe that they had all been very lucky in the past few hours—all except for poor Pat Crowley.
Alex glanced back at Jack, who walked next to Ronnie. The kid was still in a state of shock, but he was ready to avenge his father. Alex was convinced that Jack would fight like a demon when the time came. As for the other New Jersey people, well, they were still with the guerrillas. If any of them were infected, or any of the New York people or his own people for that matter, things could go very badly. Sabotage would be a simple matter for someone working on the inside. There was no way of telling if anyone was infected. Alex had never suspected Pat; in fact, he had not even known that he was infected when the thing inside his brain led Tony Chang to his death.
If there were infected among the guerrillas' numbers, they might very well not know it themselves until it was time to do the dirty work. It was a ch
ance that Alex and his people had to take.
He was prepared to shoot the first person who appeared to be out of line . . . no matter who it was.
As Shina had predicted, the going got a lot easier after they had traveled further south. By the time they reached 8th Street, they were walking on a more or less flat surface. In spite of the strewn detritus, there were clearly defined streets. Their progress became much swifter.
"Have you noticed that there isn't anything moving around here?" Jo said as they walked through the once quaint neighborhood. "I mean, we haven't even seen a rat."
Alex allowed himself a smile. "Thousands of colloids streamed through here a few hours ago. All the rats probably left town after that gooey stampede."
"Why haven't the colloids sent another army of infected to meet us?"
"My guess is that they're going to use them to protect the neonate," Alex said. "It's hard for them to stop us while we're on the march. The best they can do is put as many of the infected between us and the neonate as they can manage, and hope that we don't get through."
"Yes," Claire said from behind them, "they didn't engage us in battle today for no reason. They want to make us use up our ammunition. They don't know how much we've got, but it probably exceeds their expectations."
"You mean they didn't expect us to get through the tunnel?" Alex said.
"Probably not, but now we're closing in on their breeding ground. They've got to do something to stop us. I think you're right. They'll put up hundreds of thousands of the infected as a shield if they have to."
"And give up all that food?" Shina asked.
"Yeah," Alex said. "They can't survive on what's left for more than a few weeks, a month or so at the outside. The neonate has to be created before the weather gets too cold. If they had developed the new infection earlier, their plan would have been foolproof. As it is, there's still a chance."
Shina looked at him suspiciously. "How the fuck do you know all this shit?"
"Did you hear what I said about the new infection?" Alex asked.
"Yeah."
"I had it."
"Shee-it."
Alex wasn't sure if she were expressing incredulity or belief. "Believe what you want, Shina, but that's what happened to me."
"And they just told you all about their plans while you were infected, right?"
"No, not exactly. But you learn some things just because of the colloid being inside your mind."
"It's true," Jo said.
"I guess you know because it happened to you, too. Ain't that right, honey?" Shina said sarcastically.
"That's right."
"I caught the virus from her," Alex explained. "We both have memories that the colloids didn't want anybody to know. It never occurred to them that we could free ourselves from the infection."
Shina looked from one to the other, and then at Claire.
"It's true," said Claire. "I was a witness to Jo's infection, and I was there when she recovered."
"Wow," Shina said.
"Yeah," Alex said. "Wow is right."
"They didn't eat 'em," said the androgynous creature, who Shina had called "Satch" a couple of times. "Why didn't the colloids eat 'em?"
"Because they wanted our brains in good shape," Alex explained. "Maybe as models for the baby's brains, or maybe so they could infiltrate. Maybe for both reasons."
Shina looked at Satch, and then glanced back at the others. "You telling me that any one of them could be a spy?"
"Any one of us," Alex corrected her. "Any one of us."
"Shee-it."
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The darkness began to turn gray. Dawn was coming, and they were getting very near to South Ferry. It was time to stop and take stock of their weapons and ammunition, to make peace with themselves and their gods before they went into battle.
"The waterfront's only a few blocks away," Alex said. "I think we'll find what we're looking for there. If not, then we've come a long way for nothing. One man has died, and the rest of us are weary to our bones. The colloids might have left me with a false idea about all this, to throw us off, but I don't think so. I think we're closing in on their last hope to hold onto this planet, and I'm confident that other guerrillas are fighting back all over the world."
Alex was so tired that he was almost hallucinating, seeing shapes shifting in the ruins of the city. Somehow he kept going, though, a vision in his brain of the colloids dying, fading, vanishing from the earth. He knew the truth now; it had been buried deep inside him all the time, but his fatigue, combined with his sense of mission, brought it forth now that he needed it.
"They blew it," he said. "They almost did it, but they didn't develop the third stage soon enough. The trial infections didn't take. We all saw Pat Crowley take his own life rather than allow them to control his mind. That's the sort of courage they can't fight. They don't understand it, and they never will. That's why they're going to lose this war."
"Yeah!" Riquelme shouted, lifting his fist and shaking it at the lightening sky.
Seventy strong, they all lifted their clenched fists in solidarity and cried out for the downtrodden human race. They were going to fight, and this time they did not intend to lose the battle, or the war.
Alex felt their courage reinvigorating him, filling him with renewed strength. He had never believed in destiny, but he was somehow certain that this was the moment he had been created for.
Locking and loading, the guerrillas prepared for battle. Alex no longer distinguished his own people from the New Jersey or New York people. They were the human race, united before this greatest of all. They had been humbled, enslaved, beaten into the mud, and now they would rise again.
Alex turned and led the guerrillas through the empty streets as the morning light grew ever brighter. Jo walked beside him, her .32 pistol in hand. Beside her was Riquelme, the flamethrower's nozzle in his hands as he walked proudly to battle. And beside him were Claire, and Samuel, and Jill, and Shina, and Ronnie, and Jack, and Dan, and all the others.
Alex had agonized through the night about the best method of attack, and he had been forced to conclude that there was nothing for it but to face the infected head on, to try to break through to the colloids' breeding ground. The guerrillas had learned that the infected were not really warriors, and, conversely, that they themselves were now seasoned veterans. Everything depended on how many of the enemy were left to send out against them. If the colloids had spread the infected too thin, the guerrillas might succeed.
They soon saw how many they were up against. In the gathering light, the infected were spread out all the way to the docks by the tens of thousands, as they had feared. There were at least as many colloids oozing irritably a safe distance from the waterfront. The guerrillas clung to the deep morning shadows of wrecked brownstones, moving stealthily. Alex raised his hand, signaling them to halt.
They retreated out of sight and earshot of the infected, to discuss possible strategies.
"I say we should hit 'em hard," said Riquelme, patting his trusty flamethrower. "Just burn a hole right through the middle of them."
"It might work," Claire agreed.
"If it is the Lord's wish," Samuel said.
"I don't know," Alex said. "It might be smarter to look around for some other means. There are just too many of them for a full frontal attack."
"He's right," said Shina, whose advice was welcomed by the others. "There might be a place where they ain't so thick, where we can get through and get a look at this baby you've been talking about."
"So what do we do?" asked Ronnie.
"Send out a scout to look around. There's gotta be a place where they're spread too thin."
"I think Shina's right," said Jo.
"Woman's intuition," Shina said, grinning at Jo. "Ain't that right, babe?"
Everyone laughed, breaking the tension for a moment. But the suspense seeped back into the air as surely as the morning mist.
"We'll send out tw
o," said Alex. "One to the right and one to the left."
"I'll go," said Jack, eager to avenge his father's death.
"Not this time, son," Alex said. "You risked enough yesterday. This time I think I'll volunteer."
"Not spoken like an old Army man," said Riquelme, "but admirable, nonetheless."
"Well, we need to save you for the firefight."
"Firefight is right," said Ronnie, squeezing Jack's shoulder. The boy frowned in disappointment, but he didn't put up any argument. His father had apparently taught him to obey authority figures, a necessity in wartime.
