“Yes, sir.”
Sandoval pushed the model over with a bump and went to the door, turning off the lights as he left the room.
Walking downstairs and out the rear exit, he took a golf cart through deserted machine shops full of massive lathes, drills, and other steel-milling equipment. He found his Caddy in the east loading dock and gratefully sank into its deep upholstery one last time, reveling in its lush, amniotic suspension.
Jim could live in that car; he loved his things and hated to leave them. Having been born poor and come to wealth in his late teens, he never lost his deep need for material validation. In that way, both MoCo and the SPAM program reflected his packrat mentality: you can take it with you. Having known both abject poverty and absolute luxury, Sandoval liked to say, I prefer luxury.
He started the engine and pulled onto the service road.
Outside, the shooting had stopped, and a muffled calm descended with the fog.
Isolated pockets, isolated pockets, isolated pockets…
Sandoval caught himself muttering and put a stop to it. Those words had been cropping up in his thoughts too often, like an insipid tune he couldn’t stop humming. He supposed it was some kind of post-traumatic stress thing, and wondered if worse was to come. Bitter-cold pragmatist though he was, he knew he hadn’t yet really faced THE END OF THE WORLD, any more than he had faced his daughter’s suicide, and he wondered if it was even possible to come to terms with such a thing. Short of dropping dead from grief, what could be an appropriate reaction? And he had to put up a brave front, lest his own horror demoralize his subordinates.
Most of the people at the plant had been rather sheltered from the terrible events of the past month. The remote point of land occupied by the submarine compound was not on any map and was screened from prying eyes by miles of restricted Navy property. It was a rare “isolated pocket”-a place the Maenad plague had not penetrated. Its convenient desolation was the sole reason for their survival, but it also created a false sense of security. Most of them had never even seen a so-called “Xombie.”
Well, now they would. Oh yes.
As he passed through the deserted inner checkpoint and turned away from the direction of the submarine pen, Sandoval was a bit surprised to see that Coombs had really taken him at his word-they had gone ahead to the boat and left him alone. That was easier than expected; maybe they were glad to get rid of him. But why should that be surprising? They had military duties to perform, a ship to make ready, a crucial mission to undertake. Jim Sandoval was ballast, deadweight. He was a civilian and, from their point of view, the worst kind of civilian: a civilian you had to kiss up to. By bailing out, he was probably doing them a favor.
How many other residual pockets of humanity were out there? Jim wondered. Hundreds? Thousands? The corporation had obviously benefited from isolation and dumb luck, and he knew of a few other such organized hideaways from the epidemic, but that was no indication of how many survivors there might be among the general population. The independents, the rogue elements. Because, ultimately, they would be the backbone of any new civilization.
Sandoval’s own experience had not been hopeful. He’d been in touch with Washington for the better part of January, discussing contingencies and implementing the Family-to-Work Plan, just so the illusion could be sustained that the company was keeping up its contractual commitments to the Navy, but after martial law was announced, it became harder and harder to get anyone on the horn. When he did, they urged him to “sit tight” and “hold the fort,” as if all he needed was a little bucking up.
The NavSea team on the factory premises, led by Commander Harvey Coombs, became a paranoid clique that transferred its base of operations to the boat and didn’t want to share whatever information was coming over the submarine’s communications array. But, apparently, they hadn’t had any better luck than Sandoval at calling in the cavalry because Coombs soon turned up, hat in hand, stressing the need for cooperation… especially in regard to the Plan. As keeper of the Plan, Jim Sandoval held all the cards and held them close to his vest. One thing that was clear to both of them was that their deadlines and employee morale issues were small potatoes in the larger scheme of things.
Jim counted as victories his ability to persuade the rank and file that a gutted nuclear submarine could be a godsend to them and their male offspring-a big steel safety net-as well as to finagle extra security and a sea convoy for routine supplies.
But in doing these things, he had the inescapable feeling that he was engaged in something shady, that the resources he was diverting to one neutered SSBN (or an SSGN, as the Navy had permitted him to call it, though the bellyful of guided cruise missiles it was supposed to carry would never be delivered) might be more desperately needed elsewhere. Who was he to decide who lived and who died? Even using the submarine’s S8G reactor to supply power to the local grid could be interpreted as a wasteful extravagance, lighting a few suburbs while the rest of human civilization went dark.
By mid-January, everything had really shut down. Sandoval received a last official instruction: to compile all the available records of the Agent X epidemic into one report, a sort of doomsday scrapbook, and preserve it for posterity as an essential part of the boat’s cargo. A message in a bottle. Everything had happened so fast, there was no other official record, no history. Anyone still alive was to participate in this final archive and add their own perspective on the disaster. Officially, it was called The Maenad Project. Jim dubbed it The Apocalypticon.
At first, Sandoval looked upon this ridiculous assignment as truly the last nail in the coffin-who exactly did they think was going to take time out from the struggle for survival to participate in this scavenger hunt? And who would be around to read it?
But during the long nights in limbo, he began to find the idea strangely compelling: that he was at the center of extraordinary events that deserved to be memorialized. It had never occurred to him that all this sad, ugly scrabble for crumbs could be shaped into something coherent… and even majestic. That it only required a historian who could do it justice, a writer who could really milk the situation for all the poetry and pathos it was worth. A writer who could immortalize him, James Sandoval, as a keeper of the flame of civilization. A prophet for a new age.
He thought of the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free… ” Yes! That was exactly the kind of writing this situation called for. Unfortunately, Sandoval knew, he wasn’t that writer. And unless by some extraordinary accident he found another Emma Lazarus with the requisite skills to enshrine in poetry or prose such an eternal testament to the unquenchable power of the human spirit, the project would have to languish. Sandoval had other things to worry about.
That was the beginning of the true “isolated pockets” phase of the plague, when all commerce, all movement, seemed to grind to a halt like film jamming in an old movie projector. Telephone, radio, satellite, and computer networks folded simultaneously, leaving an ominous silence that was all too easy to fill in with raging paranoia. Sandoval’s people were reduced to using shortwave radio over the submarine’s transmitter, but without functioning relays or a direct line to SOSUS, this was a feeble candle in the darkness.
Delegations of volunteer fact finders were sent out and never heard from again. They lost half the men this way, and nearly all the company vehicles. The tidbits of news they did hear were all bad:
Population centers worldwide were saturated with Maenad Cytosis and Xombie psychosis, cities rupturing outward like virus-infected cells to spread waves of raving maniacs across the remnants of civilization. Canada was being bombed. Long lists of expired “safe zones” were broadcast, but even while still operational, these were nothing but tracts of remote countryside where truckloads of uninfected females were dumped-huge, open-air refugee farms that resembled POW camps, surrounded by watchtowers and silver briars of razor ribbon. No warm school gymnasiums, cozy ch
urch basements, dry armories and civil defense shelters loaded with blankets and hot coffee and donuts. It was all mass hysteria and sudden death. Death at best.
Especially in those early days, Sandoval received all kinds of conflicting instructions from an assortment of increasingly incoherent provisional leaders-those who would talk to him at all-raving about EMP detonations, satellite warfare, alien invaders over Kansas, and the ever-popular Rapture. He knew one man in particular who was making great hay with the religious angle, a former media Mogul named Chace Dixon, who begged him for help he had no power to send. It had been days now since he last bothered tuning in.
In the end, the last acting NATO commander-some third-tier lieutenant in the French Navy-decided that humanity’s last, best chance was to set up a nautical sanctuary in Chesapeake Bay. This cockeyed optimist ordered every survivor to report to Norfolk, where he and his staff were supposedly following orders from the president of the United States-the dead president-to guard some kind of secret project called Xanadu.
It was all nuts. Yet even Sandoval wasn’t immune to these fantasies. He often pictured a simple, nautical existence for the dregs of mankind, coming ashore only when necessary to forage, the way old-time mariners approached uncharted coasts, maybe finding a tropical island somewhere to settle down. Live out your years on fish and coconuts. Swim every day and get a really deep tan. No bills to pay-in fact, forget all about the pain in the ass that was Western Civilization. It was more trouble than it was worth, anyway.
All very delightful, except that Sandoval knew there were precious few island havens. Islands were the first things to go because there was nowhere to run when your women came after you. Most of the islands he knew of were either embattled fortresses or Xombie-infested charnel houses. That such daydreams had taken the place of serious planning was perhaps the clearest possible indication of the end of the world.
Harvey Coombs himself had recommended going to Norfolk in search of whatever seaborne military forces still existed. Sandoval didn’t have the heart to tell him that their real mission was in the opposite direction.
The helicopter landing pad was at the extreme northern tip of the compound, a barren patch of dirt overlooking the upper reaches of Narragansett Bay. As Sandoval pulled up, the fog was so thick he could barely see the black Bell JetRanger. But the pilot saw his headlights and came running to meet the car.
“Can we fly in this?” Sandoval asked.
“Oh yeah, no prob. With GPS, it’s no sweat, and we’ll be flying above the muck anyway-it’s just ground fog. Hang tight for a second while I finish my preflight.”
“You’re the boss.” Sandoval locked himself in the car and plugged in some music. He already owed his life to Stan Velocek several times over, and was accustomed to doing whatever the retired aviator told him to do. As both his personal pilot and bodyguard, Stan went everywhere with him, and the first thing Jim had done when he arrived at the plant was to make sure the man would be well taken care of.
Good thing, too. If it wasn’t for Stan, he would never have survived the expedition to Brown University. None of the other two hundred men who went out there ever made it back to the plant. Jim could still picture that line of company vans and trucks leaving the gate like a military convoy, full of heroic working stiffs-solemn-faced shipfitters and tank rats who had been stirring up revolution and were placated with an offer to seek out lost loved ones outside the gates: all the mothers, sisters, and daughters who hadn’t even been infected when they abandoned them and took shelter in the submarine compound.
They didn’t find anyone… but at least Jim found what he was looking for: Miska’s Tonic.
Well, maybe not the Tonic, the fabled magic bullet-Uri Miska had either been lying about that or destroyed all traces of his work. But Sandoval did get a preliminary version of CORE: Miska’s Cognition-Retention Enzyme.
Though CORE was neither a cure nor a true vaccine, it was a reasonable stopgap, a suitable substitute that Sandoval could sell to his Mogul partners. Snake oil. It was certainly the closest he ever intended to let those bastards come to being gods. There wasn’t much, just a residue on a test sample, but with this they could theoretically make more… as much more as they needed.
His ex-wife, Alice Langhorne, PhD, had told him where to find it. Alice could be a pain in the ass, but she usually came through when it counted. She had hidden the sample in her office high atop the monolithic Brown Science Laboratory, and when they got there, it was just where she said, in the back of the fridge. A copy of Miska’s hard drive was there, too-good girl!
While he was at it, Sandoval would have liked to take another slight detour and visit his father at the Xibalba annex-Miska’s underground hideaway-but it was just too dangerous. He knew where it was, but he had never been inside, and this was not the time to figure it out. Good old Piers Alaric was certainly not going anywhere.
As it was, the lab building almost killed him. It was fortunate that Alice’s directions were so good-there was not a second to spare. One would think the Xombies had been expecting them.
The infernal creatures stayed out of sight until everyone was inside the tower, just hid there until the very last man filed up that dark stairwell, passing floor after empty floor. Then, pow!-they sprang the trap. It was a damned massacre. Grabbing the precious serum sample, Sandoval ran to the roof like a cornered rat… and there was Stan Velocek with the helicopter, hand outstretched like some angel from heaven.
Jim watched now as the man darted around the helicopter, a picture of cool competence, scanning every direction for signs of danger, combat shotgun at the ready. Removing the anchor lines, he did a quick visual inspection of the engine and tail rotor before starting it up.
Sandoval was glad he wouldn’t have to ride with Coombs and the other Navy men in that broken-down hulk of a submarine. What a nightmare that would have been. Considering the working conditions at the plant, it would be a miracle if that thing ever made it out of Narragansett Bay.
From the very beginning, he had intended to take the chopper to the desolate island airstrip where his private 757 was waiting, but he wasn’t about to leave anything up to chance. It was vitally important to have a backup escape plan, just in case Velocek realized there was nothing stopping him from taking the whirlybird for himself. But the pilot didn’t disappoint; Jim should have known he was as good as gold.
Thumbs-up-the helicopter was ready. As Sandoval stepped out of the car, something flickered at the edge of his peripheral vision: a pale shape rushing through the fog. It was so silent and quick that at first he thought it was something in his eye, a bit of fuzz or his mind playing tricks, and even when he looked at it full on, he could scarcely believe it was happening-because that’s how these things got you. Then it jumped on the copter.
It was a grotesque salamander of a woman, naked, muddy, and mottled blue-black from the sea. As Sandoval watched, the slippery creature clawed at the copter’s bubble canopy, trying to get at the man inside. Velocek tried shooting at it through the small side port and almost lost his gun; he just couldn’t get a good angle. In a second, it was going to rip the door right off the cockpit.
Waving at Sandoval to stay put, the pilot strapped himself in and throttled up for liftoff-obviously he was going to try to shake the thing loose. Knowing what a daredevil Stan was, Sandoval had no doubt the man could do it… it just made him a little uncomfortable to be left sitting here in the dark watching his ride take off without him. Knowing more of those things could appear any second. He clutched his pistol with both hands and half cocked the hammer. Hurry up, Stan…
The helicopter rose into the air, wobbling as it strained against the unequal weight. It was a light, wasplike craft, a four-seater converted to two for the sake of a reserve fuel tank, fast and highly maneuverable, whose expert pilot knew how to handle unusual loads.
With the creature beating on his window, Velocek gunned forward and broke hard to the right. He was using centrifugal force to disl
odge the thing, and it nearly worked, but instead of being shaken loose, the Maenad merely lost its footing, both legs swinging up into the rotor blades. With a sound like a weed whacker hitting a clump, its feet went spinning free into the sky.
Still holding on, the thing shoved the ragged ends of its shins into the warped edge of the cockpit door, using the exposed bones as wedges to pry open the flimsy latch. It burrowed in like a parasite, a giant tick, its every heinous fiber digging at that weak spot. The Perspex window cracked, then shattered as the Xombie lunged through.
Straight into both barrels of Velocek’s shotgun.
The blast sheared off most of the Xombie’s head, slinging bone and brain matter far out over the bay. Cropped to its nostrils, the creature toppled backward, scrambling for a handhold as it spilled the last of its brains out the open goblet of its skull… then recovered as if from a bad step. Spurting black goo out the exposed pits of its sinuses, it came at the pilot with renewed vigor.
Velocek fired again, into its chest. At the same time, he pulled hard out of his dive and yawed right, creating intense g-forces that caused both the creature and the canopy door to be ripped loose, vanishing into thin air like a magic trick.
Grinning with relief-Gotcha!-Stan Velocek leveled his aircraft and barely had time to blink as a huge white cylinder loomed out of the fog. Then he and the helicopter ceased to exist.
Jim Sandoval had lost sight of the chopper, but he tried to stay calm, knowing the pilot would put down and collect him at the first opportunity. Stan was reliable if anyone was. Then, from somewhere back in the factory complex, came an eruption of yellow light, followed by a sickening thud that jarred the car. It was an exploding chemical silo.
What the hell’s that? Sandoval thought. And then: Oh shit.
Time for plan B.
Racing back to the wharf at top speed, cursing and pounding the steering wheel as he drove, Sandoval came upon something blocking the road and barely had time to hit his brakes.
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