And then Hackworth saw the third man reach into his jacket and pull out something shiny… something that looked like a gun. Chaos erupted in the square.
Hackworth grabbed Amarie and the child, and pushed them both to the ground, placing himself between them and the danger. Colley was pushing their group back, away from the melee. Everywhere, people were running, moving away from the fight. And then the gun went off, a loud crack that split the air and set off screams from the crowd, while Hackworth watched, puzzled, as the man holding the gun was thrown forward and onto his face, sprawling across the cobbled ground. Quickly, the water around him turned red, his blood pooling and mixing with the rain.
Hackworth tried to figure out what the hell had happened, but all was confusion, as people ran in all directions. Two more gunshots went off, and then he turned to see a group of a half-dozen soldiers approaching the scuffle, rifles raised to their shoulders. Another man tried to draw a weapon as he turned toward them, but they all opened fire – and three, maybe four, figures in the brawl fell to the ground.
The soldiers ran forward, weapons up and panning, as the remaining brawlers raised their hands over their heads. Hackworth watched as this scene unfolded, the soldiers leading the remaining men away, and a truck soon arriving to take away the dead. All five of those who had fallen were quickly lifted onto the truckbed and covered with sheets.
And, as if nothing had happened, the crowd in the plaza returned to the queues, though the talking and bustle was quieter.
“This is crazy,” Hackworth said to no one in particular, but Colley was standing next to him and answered.
“Nuts. I’ve never been to London before,” said the Moroccan. ”But this isn’t quite the safe place I imagined it would be. To think that this was where I was originally trying to get to when everything went crazy…”
Hackworth turned to the big man. “It isn’t. Is it?”
“What?” asked Colley. “Not what I expected?”
“No. It’s not safe here. We need to—”
“What’s that?” asked Colley, pointing over at the open-topped truck with the dead men piled in back.
Hackworth spun around, looking to where Colley was now pointing. But there was nothing, just the truck, and a pile of covered bodies. Two soldiers sat in front, and another stood outside next to the driver, talking through the window.
Then Hackworth saw it: movement. One of the bodies in the back of the truck twitched.
“Oh shit,” he cursed, and started to move toward the truck.
As he closed the gap, Colley right behind him, he started to shout. The soldier next to the driver spun around, startled by the noise, his weapon rising instinctively. He frowned at Hackworth, but then ran to the back of the vehicle and peered over the edge.
The body, very recently dead from a bullet wound to the throat, sat up. The soldier leapt backward, fumbling with his rifle and watching wide-eyed as the dead man clambered off the back of the truck, the sheet sprawling onto the ground. It staggered to its feet, locked eyes onto Hackworth, and began to lurch forward.
Hackworth moved back as Colley stepped in front of him and produced his ax, then began to raise it. But he didn’t need to use it. A loud crack echoed across the plaza once more as the soldier fired, his aim not accurate enough to kill the thing, but good enough to knock it to the ground. He then stepped forward as the creature flailed onto its back and tried to get up again, but this time his aim was methodical, precise, and the second shot took the zombie between the eyes.
Other soldiers ran into the plaza now, and as Hackworth backed away into the crowd with the rest of the tunnelers, he heard an officer barking commands.
He continued to retreat, and soon found himself with his back against the tent serving up food. He turned, nearly falling over the market stall, and looked straight at the server – a middle-aged man in military overalls.
“You got a ticket?” asked the man, but Hackworth only blinked in response. He’d just seen a fight, summary military justice, and a newly risen zombie taken back down, all in a matter of a minute, in the middle of the only remaining capital city in the world.
“Are you deaf?” asked the caterer.
“What?” said Hackworth, frowning. “No. I’m not…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bundle of ration slips, then handed them over.
“Is this normal?” asked Colley, who hadn’t left Hackworth’s side the whole time.
“What?” asked the caterer. “Fights?”
“Yeah,” said Colley. “And that guy… turning.”
The caterer started to hand over plastic plates of what looked like vegetable stew. Hackworth wasn’t sure what it was, but it smelled pretty good.
“You’re not from London, are you?” asked the caterer.
“Nowhere near,” said Colley.
“Well, the fighting’s normal, quieter than usually if anything. But turnings? No. Not quite like the last few days, with all the folks from the front coming in. I mean, there’s always the odd one stumbling around in the dodgier areas, but not like the amount we’ve had turn up the last few days.”
A few minutes later, as the group gathered just down the street, all shoveling stew and stale bread into their mouths, Hackworth stood watching the plaza, where they had come from.
“Covent Garden,” he said, finally.
“What?” asked Colley.
Hackworth indicated the cobbled street where the fight had happened. “It’s fucking Covent Garden,” he said, bewildered. “Doesn’t look anything like it used to.”
Colley shrugged. Having never seen it in the first place, he had no reference to compare it to, but one thought did come to mind. “How do they expect that wall out on the M25 to keep the dead away, if they’re trucking infected people right into the city?”
Black on Ammo
JFK - Hospital
“We considered setting you up your own lab, in an unused compartment nearby. But we ultimately decided it was quicker and better just to give you ours. It’s through here.”
From the insignia of the woman who greeted Sarah and Park in the front of the hospital, she was a Lieutenant Commander – and a certified flight surgeon. From her commanding demeanor, she also gave the impression that she ran the joint. She wore a service side arm on her hip, and her name tape said “Walker.”
She led Sarah and Park through two large examination and ward rooms, then turned left into a side compartment – a slightly more high-tech one. Inside, she turned to face them and carried on speaking. She didn’t hem, pause, fidget, or shuffle her feet. She was rocks.
Sarah immediately liked her.
“Word came down straight from Drake,” she said. “We’re to afford you every consideration – whatever you need. So we’re giving you the keys to the kingdom. This is our medical lab, with additional stations for radiology and pharmacy. I can’t promise you my people won’t need to come in here to get things done. This department currently has fifteen officer billets and thirty enlisted, and we’re responsible for the health care, health management, and combat medicine for every one of the twenty-five-hundred souls aboard.”
She paused to draw breath. “The good news, from your point of view, is that some of our ratings are in laboratory, X-ray, and biomedical equipment repair. Those people are also at your disposal. Contact me, or the officer of the watch in my absence, for anything you need, or any questions you have.”
Park hastened to say, “Thank you.” Sarah nodded.
LCDR Walker nodded back. “Okay, then, here’s your six-bit tour. Pay attention because I don’t give it twice.” She turned and moved amongst the lab counters and stations as she narrated. “It’s a modestly complete bioscience lab, at least for biomedical applications. Some of the equipment is special purpose – cardiac enzymes, PT/PTT, hematology, that kind of thing. There’s also ultrasound and computed radiology – that workstation there, if it’s any use to you. But there’s also more general purpose microbiology equipment.
”
She walked around pulling open drawers and cabinets. “We’ve got a good variety of test tubes, glass slides, and cover slips… beakers, flasks, and dishes… pipettes, syringes, Bunsen burners.” She pointed to a device that looked like a small photocopier. “Ultracentrifuge. And over there’s a spectrophotometer. Various flavors of chromatography at that station there. Induction coils, oscilloscope, and, finally, microscopes – two optical and one electron.”
She turned back to face the other two. “So you think you can save the world with this?”
Park smiled. “I can try. There’s some specialist drug-research and virology equipment I’ll need when we get to the UK. But I can definitely do useful work here.”
“Then I’ll leave you to it,” Walker said, already moving toward the hatch. She clearly had work to do herself.
When she was gone, Park and Sarah turned to face each other. “So…” he said. “Your job is just to keep me alive? I’m afraid you’ve got big shoes to fill there.”
“Why – you surprised to still be alive?”
“Yes, frankly. I never thought I’d see the outside of that bunker in Chicago. I was just waiting for the supplies to run out.”
Sarah nodded. This man was a survivor – just like her. And that wasn’t nothing. It could be the basis of a relationship. “No,” she said, finally. “My job is not just keep you alive. It’s also to keep you productive – get you whatever you need to work.” She paused and considered, looking around the room, then down at her empty belt. It had been a long time since she’d been farther than arm’s reach from a firearm.
Oh, well, she thought. Life is change. And while it was better to have a gun and not need it, it was better still not to need one in the first place.
She noticed Park scratching at his ankle with the toe of his other foot. Then she saw the boots he wore clashed with his outfit – they were polished black work boots with thick soles and very high ankle support. But aside from that he was wearing business casual. Unlike her, Park actually was wearing the clothes he had escaped Chicago in – after they’d been through a piping hot cycle in the Kennedy’s gleaming laundry room. But now it was all matched with a pair of U.S. Navy Bates DuraShocks steel-toe boots.
Park shrugged while he scratched. “They take a little getting used to.” What he was used to was loafers, or lab slippers – neither of which had the weight, bulk, or stiffness of the military boots. Sarah figured he’d never had any need of a safety boot – though she had, across thousands of hours of patrol on the streets of Toronto, and then later in the forest.
Sarah smiled. “What happened to yours?”
“Walked them right off my feet. Two years in the bunker – then sprinting through the streets of Chicago, wading through the mud out of Lake Michigan, parachuting into the Atlantic…”
“Saltwater’s a killer.”
“So it seems.” Park paused. “Keep me productive, huh?”
“Actually,” she said, “I’m anxious to help you in whatever way I can. And I’m willing to try and learn whatever I need to know to do that.”
“Excellent. The more you learn, the more use you’ll be to me. And God knows I can use the help.”
“Okay, then,” she said. “I’m in.”
* * *
Up in what had recently been the relaxing atmosphere of Alpha’s team room, Ali now faced the moment of truth.
She had to spill the beans about Homer.
She hesitated another few seconds, shifting her view across the inquisitive gazes of Pred, Juice, and Henno. While she paused, it was quiet enough to hear the others not breathing. It was quiet enough to hear the lights hum.
She finally drew breath, and gave them the short version of Homer’s odyssey. The first part was indeed the story of an epic road trip – one gone horribly wrong, but salvaged in the end. The bombshell was what Homer and Sarah had found when they got to Virginia – specifically, in Dam Neck.
The other three just stared wide-eyed through the story.
“What?” Predator finally interjected. “You’re kidding. Those dudes are alive? How?”
Ali shrugged. “Alive and operating. As to how – well, basically, they’re that good. Plus they were prepared.”
“And the moppets were with them the whole time?” Henno asked, meaning Homer’s children.
“Yes.”
“…And their mother?” Juice finally asked, his voice quiet and breathy.
He had actually never met Homer’s wife. Then again, he’d never met Homer either, not before the work-up and rehearsals for their North Korea mission, back at Hereford, not long before the world ended. But after thirty months of working together, including fighting off the end of the world, everyone in Alpha felt they knew Homer’s wife – just as they felt they knew everyone important in the lives of their teammates.
Ali shook her head slowly. Her face was so still and composed it looked like a death mask. When she finally spoke, she did so very quietly. “She’s dead. And buried.”
That second thing had to be made explicit. Because, in Homer’s devout Christian faith, he was still married until death they did part. And while death had become a slightly fuzzier concept in recent years, being under the ground definitely qualified.
So, for Ali, this changed everything.
* * *
“What you first have to understand,” Dr. Park said into the quiet air of the lab, “is that this thing evolved… perfectly.”
He spoke with a special intensity. Sarah hadn’t seen a whole lot of his face before now. But she’d certainly never seen it lit up like this. There was no question he believed, he felt, what he was talking about. Alone now, the two of them leaned against opposite lab benches, bodies angled back, but facing in toward each other.
To Park’s side, his laptop was re-crunching his nucleopeptide analyses. He knew what the results were going to say. But he wanted fresh numbers to work with. So they had a few minutes. He continued lecturing.
“When it first emerged, this virus had one of the deadliest characteristics any new pathogen can have – a long incubation period. That’s what makes emerging diseases so insidious, and what allowed this one to spread globally, before anybody had any real idea what was happening. What a really clever pathogen needs is people who are infected – but who appear healthy.”
Sarah nodded. “I imagine that’s the only way it can blast across borders.”
Park nodded, more vigorously. “Exactly. You remember the WWZ movie? Where the zombie virus had an incubation period of exactly twelve seconds? How the hell did they think that was going to cross oceans? How would anybody infected with it ever be allowed to board a plane? Not only would they not get through security, they’d already be eating people back at the check-in counter.”
Sarah laughed quietly. “So not so plausible.”
“Not at all. This thing, our virus, Hargeisa, initially had an incubation period of several days – three to four, say the official records from the beginning. But my guess is it was over a week, and maybe even two, at the outset.”
“Why?”
“I’m just following the slope of the line. Because we know the incubation period got radically shorter after that. As I said, this thing was smart – and its evolutionary path was perfection itself. Once it had spread into every continent, into most of the world’s countries, and into all the major population centers… only then did it start to morph, to speed up. Incubation time dropped to hours – with breathtaking speed – and then to minutes. Nowadays, anecdotally, there are reports of cases where time from infection to turning is measured in seconds.”
Sarah nodded. She hadn’t seen anything like that herself. But, then again, everyone in her neck of the woods had died two years ago. And she’d been lucky enough not to witness anyone turn since.
“Now think about what that does for the virus. Once there’s a handful of infected people, or even one, in a populated area, it can rage through like a flash fire. With normal incubati
on times for deadly pathogens, once people know what’s going on, and know the risk, they can quarantine… isolate… pre-empt the spread of the disease. But, now, with people turning in seconds, it actually was like the opening scene of the same movie, in downtown Philadelphia.”
Sarah remembered it. “Mass panic. And no one able to run ahead of the storm. That much they got right.”
“Yes. And this new type, the one they call the Foxtrot, which just sprints around infecting the living… well, it’s merely the apotheosis of the same behavioral and evolutionary strategy the virus has followed since the beginning.” He glanced over at his laptop to check its progress. “A ridiculously fast-moving zombie is scary as hell, and extremely dangerous – to an individual. But a fast-incubating virus – coming off the back of very slow-incubating one – is deadly to a whole species. That’s what took us down.”
Sarah shook her head. “That and the fact that everyone already infected relentlessly hunted down those who weren’t.”
“Exactly. You’ve actually drilled down precisely to the unique genius of this virus.”
“How so?”
“Well, start by considering what a human looks like to a bacterial or viral infection.”
“And that is?”
“Food.”
“Okay. But if we’re already their food… then why have they started making us eat one another?”
Park nodded. “Why, indeed? And the answer is pure genius. Look at it from the virus’s point of view. The core challenge it faces is virulence versus contagiousness – that is, how bad it is versus how communicable it is. The Darwinian way to look at it is that it has two distinct reproduction challenges – reproducing inside a victim, and spreading to more victims in a population. It’s a trade-off. Basically, the faster it eats us, the harder it is for it to spread.”
Arisen, Book Six - The Horizon Page 9
