Plague War

by Jeff Carlson

  * * * *

  He answered their questions as best he could during the two-and-a-half-hour flight. The plane settled down once they were out of the desert, but he obviously shared their tension and welcomed the distraction. He knew who they were. He was proud to serve. “You guys look like shit,” he said like a compliment.

  * * * *

  Grand Lake was among the largest of the U.S. rebel bases. They landed on a thin road and Cam saw a scattering of jets and choppers on either side, many of them draped in camouflage netting. Nearby stood four long barracks of wood and canvas. There were no trees. The land was trampled brown mud. There were people everywhere. These peaks were inhabited over an area of several square miles in a shape like a horseshoe. From the plane, Cam had seen tents, huts, trucks, and trailers spread across the rough terrain along with hundreds of ditches and rock berms. Latrines? Windbreaks? Or did those holes and simple walls serve as homes for people with nothing better?

  Grand Lake had been a small town set on the banks of its namesake, a fold of blue water caught in a spectacular box canyon just nine miles west of the Continental Divide. It sat at eighty-four hundred feet elevation and couldn’t have supported many more than its original population of three thousand in any case, but during the first weeks of the plague, its streets had served as a staging ground for convoys and aircraft. The roads and trails that rose into the surrounding land became lifelines to safe altitude. Soon afterward the town itself was demolished for building material and other supplies.

  From above, the movements of the first evacuation efforts were still visible, like tidemarks in the sand. Many of the vehicles didn’t look as if they’d moved since then, packed in among the refugee camps. In places the trucks and tanks also functioned as barriers, squeezing the population in some directions while protecting the people on the other side. There were also open areas where they seemed to be farming or preparing to farm, digging at the mountainsides to create level patches. Some looked better planned than others.

  Cam’s impression was one of entrenched chaos, but he felt admiration that they were here at all. They’d done so much better than anything he’d known in California. They had more room and more resources, but more survivors, too. They could have lost control. They could have been overwhelmed. Instead, they’d kept tens of thousands of people alive even as they maintained a significant military strength.

  The chaos had increased nine days ago. Cam saw that, too. Grand Lake was only ninety-six miles from Leadville. They had yet to recover from the damage. Many of the shelters were still being rebuilt and there was litter everywhere, often in long patches and streamers that ran northward in the direction of the pulse. The blast wave had swept through this area like a giant comb, tearing away fences, walls, and tents—and aircraft.

  As they taxied and braked, Cam noticed a jet fighter up the slope that had overturned and caught fire. Nearby, another F-22 still hung in a cradle of chains attached to a bulldozer as a team of engineers struggled to excavate beneath the plane, trying to right it again without damaging its wings.

  “I’ll run interference for you if I can,” their pilot said, gesturing to the other side of the Cessna.

  “Thank you, sir.” Newcombe spoke for them all.

  At least a hundred men and women stood beside the road, grouped among the trucks and raised netting. Cam was on edge. The crowd was five times as many people as he’d seen in one place since the plague. In fact, a hundred people were nearly more than he’d seen alive at all, not counting helicopters and planes. He touched his face. He turned to Ruth. She was what mattered, and he saw a different strain in her eyes as she clutched her backpack and the data index.

  She was breathing too fast. Her chest rose and fell against her T-shirt. Her arms were scored with red marks where she’d been scratching. They’d taken off their encrusted jackets and Ruth was slim and firm but absolutely filthy, speckled with old bites and sores and a few spots of blister rash.

  “The man in the dark suit is Governor Shaug,” the pilot said. “Small guy. Not much hair.”

  “I see him,” Newcombe said.

  “Let’s head straight for him, okay?” The pilot had removed his eye patch and pocketed it as he walked to the door of the plane. Newcombe and Cam stood up. The copilot joined them.

  Outside the round windows, Cam saw a team of Army medics and a gurney off to one side. That was good. They’d anticipated the most obvious need, but he resented the mob. He wanted food and sleep. But they wanted the vaccine. He had no right to blame them. The circus seemed like a bad idea, though, despite the netting that concealed most of them from satellite coverage. The Russians might be looking and listening. The best thing would be for Ruth to disappear.

  Their pilot opened the door. The air felt wonderful on Cam’s skin, but the crowd stopped them close enough to the plane to feel the hot stink of the engines. Most of the people were in uniform, yet it was a civilian who took charge, a clean-shaven man in a smudged white dress shirt. Many of the others were bearded and sunburnt. This man was pale.

  “Missus Goldman?” he said.

  “We have wounded,” the pilot said. “Let us through.”

  “Missus Goldman, I’m Jason Luce with the U.S. Secret Service. Are you okay?”

  “She’s hurt. Let us through.”

  “Of course,” Luce said. His men slipped in between Ruth and the copilot as they walked and then a man in Army green drew Newcombe away from her, too.

  “Staff Sergeant?” the man said.

  “Sir.” Newcombe saluted, but visibly hesitated as the space between himself and Ruth filled with people.

  It was hard to let go. They had been bound together through eight weeks of desolation and misery and yet this was exactly what they’d fought for, the chance to pass the vaccine to someone else. Cam told himself to be glad. It was over. They’d won. Grand Lake had the men and the aircraft to spread the nanotech—and to protect Ruth.

  “Wait.” She pulled back from Luce. She’d regained some of her color, but her expression was afraid.

  “She needs medical attention,” Newcombe called.

  The pilot said, “They all do. Give ’em some room.”

  “We have doctors and food and you can rest,” Luce said, “but you have to come with me.”

  Cam didn’t argue. His role had changed as soon as they boarded the Cessna. The power he’d wielded for so long was meaningless here, and he didn’t know enough about this place to decide if he still belonged in her life. But she wanted him. That was enough. He held on to Ruth’s narrow waist and supported her as they moved into the shade beneath the netting, where Governor Shaug advanced with both hands out.

  The governor was in his sixties, short and balding. He was also the oldest person Cam had seen in sixteen months. In California, unending stress had swiftly killed off the children and the middle-aged. Shaug was one more indicator of how different things had been here.

  There was real strength in his smile. “Thank God for everything you’ve done,” Shaug said. “Please. Sit down.” He gestured to where steel benches and tables lined one corner of the shaded area. The nearest had bottled water, Cokes, and four cans of sliced peaches. A small feast.

  Cam nodded. “Thanks.”

  “We’d like blood samples immediately,” Luce said, waving for the Army medics. “Please.”

  Please. From him, the word was loaded with tension. Cam tightened his arm on Ruth and her dirty backpack, glancing at Shaug to see if the governor would intervene. He’d thought the medics were assembled to care for Ruth. It felt like a lie. But Ruth only nodded and said, “Yes.”

  * * * *

  Richard Shaug had been the governor of Wisconsin, displaced like so many survivors. He was nominally the top man in Grand Lake, and yet Cam wondered if Shaug and Luce were working against each other. There would be factions among the leadership. That went without saying. Every day was a test, and they would have different goals. Was it something he could exploit? Which m
an had the real power? Cam imagined that it lay with the Secret Service agent. He thought Luce was more likely to have allied with the military, and he’d seen how the armored vehicles and barricades divided this makeshift city.

  He was wrong. The medics drew four slim vials of blood each from Ruth, Newcombe, and himself. The twelve plastic tubes were set in four racks and Luce said, “Take three of those to the planes.”

  Shaug held up his hand. “No.”

  “Governor,” Luce said.

  “No. No yet.”

  “We have to get it to as many people as possible. We could fly it to Salmon River, at least,” Luce said.

  “What’s going on?” Ruth asked. Her face was paler than ever. She hadn’t been able to afford even 30 ccs of blood and looked nauseous, although her eyes were angry and alert.

  Two of the medics hustled off with the blood samples, leaving their cart and equipment behind. A full squad of troops moved with them through the crowd. They were headed for the labyrinth of shelters, not the runway. Cam’s gaze shifted to the needles and tubing, and then to Luce. Did the man realize how little blood was necessary?

  “Let’s get you inside,” Shaug said, offering Ruth one of the cans of peaches. “Do you want to eat a little first? Please. I can see you’re very tired.”

  “I don’t understand,” she protested, but she was hardly a fool or a helpless girl. She was trying to draw him out.

  Shaug didn’t bother to answer. “Clean that up,” he said to the remaining medics, pointing at their trays and equipment. Then he looked back at Ruth like an afterthought. “Let’s get you inside,” he repeated, glancing at another man.

  It was the officer who’d stopped Newcombe by the plane. A colonel. “Let’s go,” the colonel said, and Cam watched the crowd separate as men and women in uniform stepped forward and Luce’s civilian agents held back. Had Luce really expected to outmaneuver the governor?

  Ruth was being used for barter or political gain, he thought. Shaug wanted to hold on to her and the vaccine in exchange for guarantees from the other Americans and the Canadians, and it was true that Grand Lake had rescued her when no one else could. But it was divisive. That was why Luce had rushed their plane. Luce hoped to spread the vaccine before some catastrophe destroyed it altogether, another bomb, or a Russian assault.

  Cam wanted him to succeed, and maybe that was all Luce had intended to accomplish—to make a friend. Shaug probably couldn’t control the vaccine no matter what he did. The three of them were exhaling traces of it just sitting here. As soon as they showered or went to the bathroom, the vaccine would be in the water and in the latrines. In fact, their jackets must be crawling with it, rubbed inside and out with blood, skin, and sweat. If they only knew, Luce and his people could slice the jackets into pieces and package the material aboard any number of jets. They could even ingest a pinch of the dirty fabric themselves and then set out below the barrier on foot.

  Cam didn’t say it out loud. There was another way. He coughed and brought his hand to his mouth, spitting lightly into his palm.

  “Have you heard from Captain Young, sir?” Newcombe asked. The colonel only frowned. “My squad leader in Sacramento,” Newcombe explained. “He and another man went south.”

  “I don’t know, son.”

  “We saw fighting on May twenty-third, west of the Sierras. We thought it was them.”

  Cam paced through the soldiers and made eye contact with Luce, extending his hand. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Sure,” Luce said doubtfully, yet he reached out and Cam completed the gesture, pressing his wet palm against the other man’s dry skin. The uncertainty in Luce’s expression deepened, but then he nodded. It was done. The vaccine was loose in Grand Lake.

  * * * *

  A blue-eyed soldier with sunburn on his ears and cheeks took Ruth’s pack. Cam would always remember his face.

  “We have a small lab,” Shaug said. “There are some people who’ll start looking things over tonight. Tomorrow you can help them.”

  “Yes.” Ruth nodded, but her mouth was set in a grimace and Cam felt no better, watching the soldier turn and go. They’d carried that battered green pack for hundreds of miles and now it wasn’t theirs anymore.

  Newcombe disappeared with the colonel. A persistent nurse also tried to separate Cam and Ruth in the small, overcrowded medical tent, where row after row of people lay groaning on blankets and cots and the bare earth, mostly soldiers. Even with the tent sides rolled up, the air was putrid. Stomach flu. But this was where Grand Lake had an X-ray machine.

  The nurse said, “We really don’t want anyone in here who doesn’t need to be here.”

  “No. I’m staying with him,” Ruth said.

  “We just want to take a quick look at—”

  “I’m staying with him.”

  The nurse checked with three doctors before turning on the X-ray, which was isolated in its own tiny space by hanging blankets. This tent was hooked into Grand Lake’s power grid, fed by turbines far below in the river, but the amperage on their line was weak and couldn’t support more than a few pieces of equipment at once.

  While the film was developed, Cam and Ruth were led to a second tent where they were given antibiotics. Ruth grabbed something from her pants before a man took their filthy clothes away. A rock. She tried to hide it, but Cam recognized the lines scored into the granite.

  “Jesus, Ruth, how long have you been...”

  “Please. Please, Cam.” She wouldn’t look at him. “Please don’t be mean about it.”

  He nodded slowly. The rock was obviously safe. Otherwise they would have gotten sick weeks ago. But why would you want to take anything from that place with you? he wondered. Maybe she wasn’t sure, either. “It’s okay,” he said.

  They were given stinging sponge baths with soap and water and rubbing alcohol. Then their multitude of wounds were treated, stitched, and bandaged. Ruth wasn’t shy about her body, although there were half a dozen people in between them and Cam turned his back, trying not to stare.

  The medical staff wore cloth masks and a hodgepodge of gloves, some latex, some rubber. They were almost certainly exposed to the nanotech. Cam coughed and coughed to purposely infect them. The vaccine wouldn’t replicate inside them because there was no plague here for it attack, but he wanted to spread the technology to as many people as possible.

  A man with glasses came in and said, “Goldman? Your arm’s healed fairly well, but I’m going to recommend a brace for at least three weeks. Don’t overuse it.”

  They cut off her battered fiberglass cast and Ruth gasped at the sight of her arm. The skin was wrinkled and albino pale, the muscles wasted. Trapped sweat had puckered her skin and in places the doughy tissue was infected. She wept. She wept and Cam knew her tears weren’t for her arm, not entirely. She was finally able to let go of all the horror she’d repressed.

  Cam hurried through the strangers and held her. Neither of them wore anything except a flimsy hospital smock. Ruth’s clean-smelling hair had fluffed up in waves and curls and Cam kept his nose against the top of her head, marveling in the small pleasure of it.

  Things got worse. The two of them had already received a fortune in pharmaceuticals and the medical staff refused to give her painkillers before they cleaned her arm. “It’s superficial,” the surgeon said. He scraped at her mushy skin and swabbed the wounds with iodine as Ruth screamed and screamed, clinging to her little rock.

  * * * *

  “We need to rest,” Cam said. “Food and rest. Please.”

  “Of course. We can follow up tomorrow.” The surgeon was testing Cam’s left hand now, pricking the scar tissue, but he turned and gestured at a nurse, who left the narrow room.

  Ruth had lain down, shaking. Her forearm was wrapped in a black fabric sleeve reinforced with metal struts, although the surgeon had said to take it off as much as possible to let her wounds breathe.

  The nurse returned with four soldiers. Cam recognized one of th
em from the landing strip and fought to hide his reaction, bristling with distrust and aggression. It was misplaced. It came too easily. “Can you help her?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the squad leader said. “Ma’am? Ma’am, we’re going to carry you, okay?”

  Cam and Ruth were dressed in Army green themselves, old shirts and pants—old but clean. The nurse hadn’t been long finding things in their exact sizes. Cam tried not to dwell on the fact that the spare clothes must have come from dead men. It wouldn’t have bothered him except that he didn’t want to offend the soldiers for any reason.

  Cam leaned on one of the young men as they left the tent. Ruth was half-conscious in their arms. Outside, a blond woman stood waiting in the last light of the sun, her chin tipped up almost combatively. From her rich hair and complexion, Cam thought she was in the prime of her early thirties, a lot like Ruth. She was beautiful, but she wore the same Army green as all of them beneath a white lab coat and it was the coat that unsettled Cam. Was she from Shaug’s nanotech team?

  Just go away, he thought.

  The woman’s legs scissored as she moved into their path. There were nonreflective black bars on her shirt collar and the squad leader said, “Excuse me, Captain.”

  She didn’t even look at him. “Ruth?” she asked. “Ruth, my God.” Her smooth hand went to Ruth’s shoulder, as deft as a bird.

  Cam said, “Leave us alone.”

  “I know her,” the woman insisted.

  He would have shoved past, but Ruth wriggled free of the soldiers and took one step, unsteady, smiling, before she buried her face in the woman’s long hair and embraced her. “Deborah,” she said.

  * * * *

  The wind picked up as the light changed, fading to orange, but Ruth clung stubbornly to her friend in the same way she’d refused to lose sight of Cam.

  “Please, ma’am,” the squad leader said.

  “Can’t you just bring our dinner here?” Ruth asked. She sat between Cam and Deborah on the tracked bare earth near the corner of the surgical tent, where they were mostly out of the breeze but could still look across the mountains in the west.