Rolling Hunger

by R W Krpoun

  Marv emerged from the Amtrak car as the train reached thirty miles an hour (which was, Grase had advised, the train’s cruising speed for this operation) clutching a framed copy of himself and Dirk Chambers, and a tee shirt. He ignored the Hard Eight operators lounging around their vehicles as he made his way back to the last two cars, Gnome territory.

  “So how was it?” JD grinned.

  “It was like John Wayne became a combination of a hellfire Baptist preacher and a used car salesman,” the Ranger shook his head. “I can’t tell if he’s great con man or completely insane.”

  “Don’t let Brick hear you say that,” the promoter warned him. “What’s with the tee shirt?”

  Marv held it up: a black tee shirt with ‘Do it like Dirk’ in large white letters. “Motto of his show. We’ll all get one.”

  “Well, it’s a free tee shirt.”

  “That’s what Dirk said.”

  The Gnomes quickly settled into life on the train. They had been allocated the last two cars, long flatbeds with a drawbridge-like vehicle ramp on the free end of the rearmost and flexible ramps between each so they could drive their trucks from car to car. Each car had a porta-john strapped in place, and the long sides had a single-stack waist-high sandbag wall fronted with galvanized tin. Each car was sixty feet long, ten and a half feet wide, and most important to Marv, stood four feet off the ground when on the rails. The flatbed’s height meant that no zombie could reach the top on the sheeting that fronted the sandbags, so in the case of a massed ground attack they would only have to defend the ends of the cars.

  As each M-35 truck was twenty-three feet long they parked two on the last car to free up living space; since each truck was eight feet wide, there was only a few inches of freeboard between the trucks and sandbag walls, a less than ideal situation the Gnomes compensated for by simply climbing over or under the trucks, or along the top of the sandbag wall using the truck for handholds.

  “We do this as a regular method, we’re going to have to develop a thinner wall,” Marv observed. “Bolted to the outside edge of the car.”

  “Yeah,” JD nodded. “Still won’t be easy to move around.”

  “Yeah. When we get back I want to set up a mock-up of the space on these cars and train everyone on backing the trucks through them.”

  “No joke: we had to move both porta johns to the front of the second car to get the trucks on.”

  “Well, they’re ungainly beasts, but they’re the right rigs for the kind of work we do.”

  “It is going to be hell on these flatbeds the further we go north; I’ve looked at the average weather, and it is not ideal for sleeping outdoors, especially since everyone we have is from the South. We are going to need a lot more bedding and clothing. It won’t be so bad when we’re on an operation, but riding on this train is going to be rough.”

  “Especially when we hit North Dakota: polar bears are never seen there because it’s too damn cold. There isn’t a single person in that state that believes in global warming.”

  “Been there, I take it?”

  “Winter training exercise; I thought Afghanistan was cold until I went there. We’ll be back south before it gets too bad, but it ain’t going to be fun. The train might be slow, but its steady and travels twenty-hour hours a day. We’ll get up there, wave to the Canadians, and haul ass back south.”

  “How are the Canadians doing, do you suppose?”

  “Haven’t heard. Probably not bad in the rural areas.”

  “They deserve all they get.” JD grinned at Marv’s look. “You don’t have kids. Try living in a house with Justin Beiber’s image and music. The people of Canada have much to answer for, and I for one have no sympathy for them.”

  “I’m hoping the Swedes take it hard. Between IKEA and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo they have many unpaid debts.”

  “IKEA,” JD sighed and shook his head. “Who does their instructions? I hate that place.”

  “Those assholes brought a weight bench, Chief,” Sauron shook his head in disgust. “They have a portable DVD player and TV unit, and they’re pumping up air mattresses.”

  “Soft living makes soft operators, dude,” Chip nodded. “We travel light, move fast, hit hard. Marv says that getting too comfortable in a war zone is dangerous because the instant you start feeling safe and comfy you’re prey. Predators don’t rest.”

  “What a load of horseshit,” Sylvia giggled once the pair moved out of earshot of the Associates. “Marv is just a hardass.”

  “Well, too much comfort gear means cargo space lost,” Chip pointed out. “Besides, he’s right. We make things too homey, everybody starts getting slack. We need to stay focused, stay sharp, keep the job in mind. In a week we’ll be back at base and can kick back.”

  “You had beds and showers when we first joined you guys.”

  “We were on the lam, too.” Faces flashed before Chip’s eyes. “And we lost people. Even though it was fairly comfortable I never felt safe, not for one minute before we got to Camp Swift.”

  “You never looked scared,” Sylvia patted his arm.

  Chip struggled between honesty and her good opinion of him. “You push it down,” he waffled between the two. “Courage isn’t about not being afraid, it’s about not being controlled by your fear.”

  “That makes sense. I’ve got Uno cards in my pack; lets find Bambi and Bear for a game. They sound like a cute couple from the nicknames, don’t they?”

  “Only if you’ve never met Bear.”

  “Gentlemen,” Anton Grase gestured for Marv and Colonel Walters to take seats. Dirk Chambers had been distracted with distributing tee shirts to the two contractor forces and it was just the three of them at a small table at the far end of the modified Amtrak car. “We have approximately twelve hundred miles to travel to reach our turn-around point, and the same to return. The rail people assure me we can expect to cover five hundred miles a day as a minimum even with our stops, so we are looking at a six-day operation plus another day or so for various chores along the way. We will stop near Grand Forks Air Force Base on our return trip to pick up displaced persons heading south and to drop off any persons we may have rescued who would wish to remain in the north.”

  “On the trip north we will deploy your forces on three operations: one short range, one medium range, and one long range; they will involve your forces being ‘launched’, as it were, at targets which are five, thirty, and sixty miles from the train. We shall start with the short mission today at fifteen thirty hours.” He handed each contractor a Chamber of Commerce map. “The target is Bangs, Oklahoma. Population five thousand, it was hit by three FASA zombie truck bomb attacks roughly ten days ago. So far as we know the population has fled or become infected. Your mission will be to reconnoiter the town, rescue any survivors you can locate, and obtain what salvage is available while staying within a ninety minute mission window.”

  “As you can see from the map the railroad cuts the town in half. For simplicity’s sake Hard Eight Rescues will operate north of the rail line while the Yard Gnome Action Team will operate south of it.”

  “I would rather take a look at the town’s resources before drawing an arbitrary line on the map,” Colonel Walters protested. “For all we know the business district could be south of the tracks.”

  “The purpose of this mission and this entire operation is to test the capabilities of the train-borne system,” Anton explained emotionlessly. “Your opportunities for loot are of no concern except to yourselves. We have ample data on the actual mechanics of salvage and rescue operations; it is in their context with the train-launching system that we are interested.”

  “It’s still an issue,” Walters persisted.

  “Hard Eight can have the south,” Marv raised his hands in a gesture of unconcern. “We don’t care.”

  “It’s the division itself, not which side we get, that is the issue,” Walters snarled. “We should make a more accurate evaluation of the assets before allocating area
s.”

  “Hard Eight Rescues will operate north of the rail line while the Yard Gnome Action Team will operate south of it.” The DSR official blandly regarded the head of Hard Eight. “Or your company can remain aboard the train.”

  The Colonel flushed. “Our contract assured us of tactical control once off the train.”

  “Exactly. You have tactical control, while I have strategic direction. The strategic parameters of your mission are that Hard Eight Rescues will operate north of the rail line while the Yard Gnome Action Team will operate south of it, and that you will operate within a ninety minute window.”

  “That is not how I interpret it.”

  “You are dealing with the Federal government on a contractual basis, Mister Walters,” Anton took a sip of tea. “Your interpretation does not interest me. You may file whatever complaint or claim you wish when we return, and in the due course of time you may even receive satisfaction. Until that distant and happy day occurs Hard Eight Rescues will operate north of the rail line in Bangs, Oklahoma while the Yard Gnome Action Team will operate south of it.”

  The retired Special Forces officer shook his head but remained silent.

  “Any questions, Mister Burleson?”

  “Just on the communications methods and protocols.”

  “They are covered in your written orders.” Anton slid a file folder to each man. “I will send word when the train is thirty minutes away from the launch site. Are there any questions? Thank you, gentlemen.”

  Walters caught Marv as they exited the car. “You see my point, don’t you?”

  “In principle, sure, but in practice I don’t really care. This is why they put a daily wage into the contract: so we won’t have to obsess over poundage. With only ninety minutes to work with I don’t expect to really toss the place in any case.”

  “The point isn’t salvage, its operational freedom.”

  “This is just like the Army: somebody else sets the mission, and we do our best to carry it out.”

  “That’s not how it works for me.”

  “Whatever. I’m working south of the railroad and sticking to the schedule.”

  “All right, everyone listen up,” Marv surveyed the entirety of the Yard Gnomes huddled together on the second flatbed. “Fifteen thirty, three thirty for you civilian pukes, we hit Bangs Oklahoma. We’ll be dropped five miles out and operate south of the rail line for ninety minutes on recon, human rescue, and salvage operations, pretty much making it up as we go. Since Hard Eight will be north of the rail line this will be a gun run, and for the thousandth time, know where your buddies are and what your backstop is before you shoot. Don’t be afraid to drop back to your hammer or let a buddy with a better angle take a shot. JD will put out vehicle assignments. Addison, I need you to scan and reproduce this map of the area as best you can, make a half-dozen copies.”

  “While we are there watch for blankets, bedding, and tarps; we are going to need to put up shelter against wind and rain. Any questions?”

  “Yes, sir,” George Sanchez stood, the black ovals of his new rank standing out on his collar. “Do we have to bail Hard Eight out when they screw up?”

  Marv grinned and the Gnomes chuckled. “Only if there’s money in it. Maybe for a HUMVEE or some of that flash gear they have. Anything else? OK, look to your equipment, clean your weapons, and be ready to roll by fifteen hundred.”

  Chapter Six

  With shaking fingers Cyrus carefully removed his tie and hung it from the neck of the thick wooden hanger that supported his suit coat. As a rule he rarely loosened his tie when on duty, being a firm believer in the importance of maintaining standards no matter how severe the crisis, but today was an exception; in fact, today was turning into what very well may be the worst day of his life.

  Sitting back down at his desk he pondered his notes and the sudden twist in his own life. He was no stranger to office politics, whether it be that of the University, an activist group, or even the more dangerous forum of FASA, and he knew perfectly well that few people are wholly devoted to the organization or its cause to the exclusion of their own careers and advancement. But in every organization there develops a mini-culture that sets the acceptable limits to the expression of personal ambition, and Cyrus had thought he had a firm grip on its breadth and depth in FASA.

  Until now. Examining Project Static Overlook’s books had opened a window into activities that stunned him and filled him with sudden concern for his own safety. Just an hour ago he was one of the top FASA officials in North America, and now he wondered if he could survive the discovery of what he had just uncovered. He hadn’t felt such a depth of fear since he had crossed the line from activist to terrorist, in fact.

  What he had learned was insanely dangerous on many levels, and for the first time he wondered if he had made a mistake joining FASA. FASA had always been a confederation or coalition of disparate groups whose ultimate goals were widely varied, but which all involved the precursor of the removal of the existing order. The bioweapon produced by Operation Static Overview was the means to accomplish their shared precursor event: a zombie virus, literally a self-deployable vector system that could sweep away all before it. And just as importantly, would die out with time. The zombies would break down and fail, and the virus would expire, trapped in rotting husks.

  The near-preemptive attack had changed things; the 618 virus was not completely the weapon they had envisioned, but with careful assistance from FASA it would suffice.

  But that was a lie: there were a lot of lies wrapped up in the plan, he was learning, and he wondered if those who had built the lies had had anything to do with the information leaks that had led to the death of General Nawaz or the strikes on the labs.

  He was not wondering about those things, however, as a comparison of the staff rosters to the administrative records of Static Overview and careful examination of the records of key personnel had left him with a terribly clear picture. He hadn’t enough data, for example, to present a criminal case on the subject, but he had enough to convince himself of the core facts.

  And the core facts were terrible: Project Static Overlook had been compromised from within. From its very onset the secrecy protocols set up to protect it had also been used to create a semi-duplicate effort. At least a third of the research conducted under the project was done on a similar but separate virus. This would have been caught in the project’s final phase in which all material was gathered, compared, and standardized, but that phase was never achieved; faced with impending enemy action research had halted and desperate efforts were mounted to create enough viral material to go forward with at least part of the attack plan. The nuclear fireballs had erased that effort, but not before seventeen bombs had been dispatched.

  The timing suggested that the cabal within Static Overview had leaked the information to ensure that the final phase of the project was not implemented, which brought up the point: which virus was released? The labs’ entire stock had been included in the effort to create bomb payloads, but that meant that at least one-third of the payloads had been loaded with the cabal’s strain. Doctor Davenport was not a scientist nor an engineer so he had no idea if both viruses had been released together, or in separate bombs.

  The phrase ‘the 618 virus is a particularly unstable strain’ kept rattling around in his thoughts: what if there were two viruses being labeled as the 618 virus? Obviously both strains were related: the entire project had been unified up to a certain point when a third of the testing cells began pursuing a different strain.

  Who had been building a similar but different bioweapon? The ERF had abruptly split with FASA early after the outbreak, but there had been many defections, and some groups that still fought under the FASA banner were doing so without accepting direction from the restored central authority.

  He had no doubt that there was a conspiracy, and he had a good idea who the point men were: it certainly could be no coincidence that Static Overlook’s chief financial officer, ch
ief of logistics, and head of internal security had not perished with the rest of the project’s staff in the nuclear blasts, the same three people the paper trail pointed out most emphatically as cabal members. Undoubtedly there were others on the staff and amongst the researchers who had been part of the cabal, but they had died in place.

  There was a fourth man, and that one troubled him the most. Static Overlook had used an off-site asset for some specialized bits of research, and he had also been the one brought in to organize the emergency production of weapon payloads. He was also not present when the warheads detonated.

  Cyrus stared at the fourth man’s name, written shakily on a single sheet of paper: Franklin Hodges, currently the technical director of Project Lantern.

  “Hard Eight Rescues goes in by the state highway,” Colonel Walters tapped the map with authority.

  The Gnomes bridled at his tone but Marv just shrugged. “We’ll follow you to here and cut down Country Road 103. See you back at the train.”

  There were always snickers when the Hard-ons, as the Gnomes had taken to calling the Hard Eight operators, crossed paths with the Gnomes; it was like being around junior high school girls, Bear reflected as he swung up into the cab of Gnome-2, all giggles and whispers and inside jokes.

  Hard Eight rolled out in a double column running about fifty miles an hour; the Yard Gnomes followed in single file, keeping it at forty.

  It was Marv’s policy that Gnome-1 was always in the middle to protect their link to the DSR controllers, with either himself or JD in the cab, the other being in a different vehicle to avoid both top leaders getting taken out by one hit. A senior Gnome was to be in each vehicle cab and another in each truck bed to stiffen the associates.