The Future War t2-3

by S. M. Stirling

  "If we can't come to an agreement on this," Ramsingh said regretfully, "then I'm afraid I can't release those patients, Captain."

  "Let's just assume everyone is working in good faith, shall we?" Yanik suggested. "I'm sure not sending medics with the trucks was an oversight. Everyone, everywhere, is overburdened at the moment. HQ is working with too few resources, too.

  Remember that saying: never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity."

  Vetrano looked somewhat mollified. "Truer words have never been spoken, Captain."

  "Sad, but also true," Yanik agreed.

  DILEK, ALASKA

  The little cove hadn't been much even before the bombs fell, and it was less now—a dozen shacks, a pier for fishing boats, and a fuel store, grubby and shabby against the steep, austere green beauty of the coastal mountains. Dieter and John had planned to meet Vera in some out-of-the-way spot, avoiding anyplace too populated. They'd reasoned that at this point people might be so desperate that they'd mob the ship. But Vera had rejected their suggestion.

  "I need fuel," she said. "You can't get fuel from bears." It might well be that they couldn't get fuel from people either, but they had to try. John couldn't believe that they'd forgotten to set up a fuel dump in their own backyard when they had a number of them elsewhere.

  "It's not our oversight," Dieter had insisted. "It's Vera's. She should have asked us where she could fuel up when she was still off California."

  But when they came to the dock where Love's Thrust was moored and the great white yacht with its touches of pink came into view, John decided that he couldn't go with them.

  Just when I think I'm over Wendy, something comes along to remind me.

  And Love's Thrust held far too many memories. He could feel them weighing down his gut, making the world turn gray and purposeless.

  "I keep thinking of those kids," John said. "Their parents may be fools but that doesn't mean I can just give up on them."

  Dieter didn't question John's motivation for heading back. He just handed over the Harley. "Keep in touch," he said. "And for God's sake, stay alive. I don't want to have gone through all this only to find Skynet in the catbird seat."

  "Me either," John said. He offered his hand and the big Austrian took it, squeezing with careful strength.

  "Good luck," he said.

  "Back atcha," John said, grinning.

  Dieter snorted, but returned the grin, ruffling John's hair.

  "You remind me of your mother," he said.

  "Then I'm sure to survive."

  They grinned at each other for a moment.

  "Give Vera my love," John said, and kicked the Harley to life.

  "She'll be disappointed," Dieter said.

  "Truth is, sometimes she scares me more than Skynet," John told him. He thought he caught a glimpse of champagne-blond hair at the rail and with a wave started off.

  Dieter watched him go, laughing, remembering that he'd occasionally felt the same way himself.

  * * *

  BLACK RIVER RELOCATION CAMP, MISSOURI

  Captain Yanik walked up to Reese, who was checking on the installation of cots inside the bodies of the trucks. "Good work, Lieutenant," he said heartily as his boots splashed through the gray mud.

  Meaning, Reese thought, that because I stuck my oar in, Yanik has decided I'm the perfect person to liaise with the hospital on this matter. He certainly doesn't want to contend with Nurse "Virago" Vetrano.

  Reese turned around and saluted.

  Yanik returned it and handed the lieutenant some papers.

  With a glance at the CO, Reese took them and at his nod started to read.

  "Oh!" he said, pleased.

  The captain grinned. "Thought that'd make your day."

  They were Reese's orders to report to the Central States Regional Command for reassignment.

  "Yes, sir!"

  "Keep reading," Yanik directed.

  "They want Nurse Shea, too?" Reese looked up. "Why? They've got your report and she doesn't know any more than she told us.

  And she's really needed here."

  "Well, in case you haven't noticed, the phone lines are down, and our commanding officers are a bit busy," the captain drawled. "And if it gets out that she heard this stuff, she might be in danger here. Besides, it'll soothe Vetrano no end to have a professional nurse with the convoy. And since it's not my idea, she can't complain to me about it."

  "Yes, sir," Reese agreed. Nurse Vetrano in full cry was a formidable lady. And Nurse Shea might prove to be very pleasant company at Central.

  "I'll leave it to you to tell her," Yanik said.

  "Yes, sir." Reese saluted, but the captain had already turned away. Dennis was so pleased about his new orders that it took him a minute to realize that he was going to have to face the head nurse's wrath.

  ON THE ROAD, MISSOURI

  Reese had planned to ride in the cab of the first truck, but Vetrano's glare and Shea's pleading eyes had quickly changed his mind.

  "I have no medical training at all," he'd protested for a final time.

  "It'll be all right," Mary said, taking him by the arm. "There's nothing complicated about this type of nursing. All you'll have to do is occasionally change an IV bag, wipe some brows, give sips of water, that sort of thing. It's tiring, but it's easy, you'll see."

  A glance at Vetrano had told him that he certainly would. He touched the orders in his breast pocket like they were a talisman against evil and allowed himself to be led off for instructions about the care and feeding of IVs.

  He had been assigned the first truck, Mary the last, and the two in between were being tended by a pair of ambulatory patients. In case there was a problem, each group had been given a radio. Reese had been given a code that would stop the first truck if he had cause, and when it stopped, the others would automatically stop as well. With luck, it wouldn't be necessary to use it.

  Nursing was tiring work, also disgusting and tedious and anxiety making all at once. Maybe it got better after you'd been doing it for a while. But Reese hoped he never had to do this again. The patients diapers needed constant changing; so far he hadn't had time to bathe anyone's brow, which all six of his patients needed.

  He'd been at this for hours. Where the hell are we going? he wondered impatiently. He pulled a tiny section of the curtain secured across the back of the truck aside to see where they were. Woods. Nothing but woods and hills. No buildings, no people, and not a very impressive roadway. They were somewhere up in the hills, he realized, heading toward the Ozarks.

  He stumbled back to the innermost bunk to check the IV and found that his patient had died. "Mary!" he said over the radio.

  "Mugamba is dead!"

  "Are you sure?" she came back.

  "He hasn't got a pulse and he's not breathing."

  She didn't answer for a moment and Reese imagined what she was thinking: yup, that's pretty much the definition of dead, all right.

  "What should I do?" he asked.

  "Just cover his face and do your best for the rest of your patients," she answered. "This isn't your fault, Lieutenant. He was very sick."

  "Will do," he said, and signed off.

  He wondered why he'd called her. Had he expected her to come leaping from truck to truck to hold his hand? Of course, he was an engineer. He'd never had anyone die on him before…

  before this all started; since then, it was becoming an unpleasantly familiar experience.

  As if some malignant fate is out to kill us all. So maybe he just wanted someone to take this burden off his hands. Make that I'd give anything for someone to come along and take this off my hands.

  The truck seemed to rear up like a frightened stallion; then it jounced fiercely as it inexplicably left the road. Reese grabbed for one of the hoops that held up the tilt and braced a boot against the side slats, swaying with the lunging pull. Either they'd left the road or the road had gone out of existence. Since he was near the side of the truck anyway, h
e reached out and lifted its canvas tilt enough to look out.

  Yep, we're off the road all right. And the patients were bouncing around like beans in a can. If the cots hadn't been secured to the truck bed and the patients secured to the cots, things would have been pretty ugly back here.

  The radio at his waist squawked and Mary Shea bellowed,

  "Stop the truck!"

  Good idea, he thought, if easier said than done. They'd rigged up a connection to the truck's computer back here, but it was up front, beside the corpse of Mugamba. The truck seemed to be climbing and hitting every rock in the way, causing it to buck like a mad thing. By the time Reese had struggled to the front, he'd collected some serious bruises.

  The bouncing made it difficult to read the computer's screen, but not nearly as hard as it was to type in the code they'd given him. He hit enter on the third try.

  "Lieutenant! Are you all right?"

  He unclipped the radio from his belt. "Yeah, sorry. I just entered the code; it didn't work." He spoke with his teeth clenched because he was afraid of biting off his tongue. "I'm going to try again."

  He hit clear, then reentered the code, then hit enter. Nothing happened except the damn truck seemed to speed up.

  "Shit," he said under his breath. He looked at the sick sharing the truck with him. They couldn't take much more of this. Maybe there was something wrong with the connection. He looked for the cord and pulled it into sight; it came easily, as though it had long since lost contact with the truck's brain. Shit, he thought bitterly.

  He reached up and pulled the curtain aside, revealing, to his immense relief, a large rear window with sliding panels. Now for some movie-style heroics, he thought. He prayed the wildly bucking truck body and window frame wouldn't emasculate him as he bridged the space between the two. Just sliding the window aside, he felt like he was being punched in the stomach by a large and very angry opponent.

  Finally he had it open, and after falling back three or four times managed to push out the screen as well. Reese grasped the edges of the window and eeled himself forward feet-first, trying to hold himself up and away from the truck frame as much as possible. He had his hips just over the edge of the window when the truck suddenly stopped.

  The flat of his back hit the windshield hard enough to crack it; worse, his head hit the steering wheel and he blacked out.

  When Reese came to, he was crunched between the wheel and the back of the seat in a sort of midsomersault position, so dazed that for a moment all he could do was wave his arms like flippers.

  Gradually he became aware of Mary screaming, "Stop! Stop!

  These people are sick! What are you doing?"

  Reese managed to flop over on his side and raised his head.

  Then lowered it again as nausea threatened. He lay still, listening to sounds from outside. Sounds of something heavy hitting the ground, sounds of bottles breaking and Mary's pleas for whoever was making all that noise to stop. In the vague way of the recently returned to consciousness, Dennis kind of wished she'd stop yelling.

  The sound of a slap and the sudden breaking off of her complaints brought him completely alert. Quietly he opened the door of the truck and slid out through the narrow gap he'd made, putting his feet down carefully on the rocky ground.

  The truck door was pulled fully open and Reese spun around, almost losing his balance. He found himself staring up the barrel of a Colt Commando, the carbine version of the army's assault rifle.

  "Hello," he said, trying to sound friendly. That was probably more prudent than: put that thing the hell down!

  "Didja think we didn't know you were in there?" the young man holding the gun asked with a sneer. "Hands on top of your head, fingers joined; now march."

  The lieutenant did as he was told. He stopped in shock when they came to the back of the truck and he saw the bodies of his patients writhing on the ground. As he stood there, another body came flying out, but this one was dead. A sharp poke in the back with the gun muzzle got him moving again.

  As he came around the back of the last truck, Mary shouted,

  "Lieutenant!" in shock, then she ducked away from a middle-aged man who threatened her with his rifle butt.

  Laughing, he approached Reese and looked him over. "Well, this must be Mr. Reese," he said.

  "Lieutenant Dennis Reese, United States Army Corps of Engineers," Reese said crisply.

  "We don't recognize any of that horseshit, Mr. Reese. There is no United States anymore, let alone a United States Army. No, sir, it's a new world."

  "A world where you attack sick people?" Reese asked.

  The man struck like lightning, bringing down the butt of his rifle precisely between Reese's neck and shoulder. The lieutenant dropped like a sack of rocks.

  "That was a stupid remark," the man said calmly. "Those people were dead anyway. Waste of time and resources tryin' to keep 'em alive. Now get up." Reese struggled to his feet under the man's hostile gaze. They stared into each other's eyes for a long moment; the man with the gun laughed scornfully. Then he looked up at the truck. "You done?"

  "Yes, sir," a woman said.

  "You sure? Check again. I don't want to find anything back there that we don't need."

  A moment later a man came out with the bucket containing the dirty diapers.

  "Well, that would have made a pleasant traveling companion,"

  the older man said. "I ought to make you eat that, Cloris."

  "Oh, stop showing off in front of the prisoners, George." She gestured at Reese and Mary. "We gonna shoot them or what?"

  "Or what, since you ask," George said. "Everybody mount up; we're due in New Madrid."

  From out of the woods came thirty or forty people, mostly men; they began to get in the trucks. Mary was clearly beside herself with anxiety, making abortive gestures toward her patients and the people getting into the trucks as though the suffering humanity at their feet didn't exist. She opened her mouth to protest, and Reese took her hand and squeezed it.

  When she looked at him he shook his head slightly. George grinned at her.

  "Don't even ask," he said. "They'll be dead in a couple of hours anyway. Ain't nothing you can or coulda done for 'em."

  "There is no central hospital, is there?" Reese asked.

  "Hell, no," George said cheerfully.

  "So this was all some kind of trap?" Mary asked.

  George leaned toward her. "Yep."

  "Why us?" Reese asked, gesturing between himself and Mary.

  "The little lady has big ears, and you've got a big mouth,"

  George said. "But I like you folks. You're feisty. So I'll give you guys a little clue." He leaned forward and whispered, "Y'all find yourselves some shelter." He winked and, laughing, went and climbed into the cab of the truck.

  Reese and Mary watched the small convoy turn and start off back down the rocky track the trucks had climbed to this spot.

  At least they threw the sick to one side, Reese thought. Either they had just enough humanity left to not run them over, or they didn't want to have to wash the blood off the trucks afterward.

  Mary knelt by one of the patients. Reese recognized the man as one of the ambulatory patients. He was a lot less ambulatory now. Mary looked up at the lieutenant.

  "His fever's way up," she said, her voice shaking.

  "Go," the man said. Mary was ignoring him, looking around for something to help him with. He grabbed her arm. "Go!" he insisted. "There's nothing you can do for any of us. No water, no blankets, no medicine—we're goners. You should go. Now." He dropped his hand and looked at her, clearly spent.

  Reese looked down at the man. I have every intention of leaving, even if I have to knock Mary out and carry her off. A trained nurse was not an asset he was likely to leave alone in the wilderness with a clutch of the dead and dying. But I feel a lot better about it because of what you said, mister.

  Mary opened her mouth to speak and was interrupted by a crashing in the woods and a loud thuttering,
whooshing sound, like a combination helicopter and vacuum cleaner. The man at their feet looked frightened, but he formed one word with his pale lips: "Go."

  Reese took him at his word. He grabbed Mary by the arm and the waistband of her trousers and hustled her toward the trees.

  "Hey!" she shouted in protest.

  "Be quiet," he hissed in her ear. They ducked behind some bushes.

  "Gimme a break," she snarled. "I could be singing grand opera and I'd never be heard over that racket."

  She was right: whatever was approaching was loud. It reminded Reese of hovercraft he'd been on. Nevertheless, he kept her crouching beside him, looking out through a ragged screen of still-leafless blackberry canes.

  "Maybe it's help," she suggested.

  He looked at her until she tightened her lips and shrugged sheepishly.

  From out of the trees came…

  I don't know what the hell it is! Reese thought, struggling against panic. Breathe slowly…

  It was oblong, made of steel, with no attempt made to camouflage it so that it would blend into the woods. It had multiple stubby arms from which the barrels of heavy machine guns extended. A central row of larger barrels were thick and stubby…

  Grenade launchers? he thought.

  It had antennae on top that looked like satellite dishes and on each visible side was some sort of video arrangement—not unlike security cameras in armored boxes. The machine was compact, about six feet tall and maybe four feet along the longer sides; call it twenty-four square feet. It rose and fell as it came forward, though it never touched the earth, riding a cushion of air.

  Reese didn't need or want to see what was about to happen.

  He grabbed the nurse by the shoulder of her short jacket and pulled her deeper into the woods.

  The hammering sound of gunfire echoed behind them; the screams were few and feeble.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SKYNET

  It estimated that fewer humans were dying of flash burns and radiation sickness, and more were dying of starvation, thirst, contaminated water, and disease. All in all, though, deaths were down, despite its human allies' efforts to spread disease. Perhaps it should have struck while the more industrialized areas of the world were in winter.