Miles Vergone rode the elevator to his small but comfortable Washington, D.C. apartment. You didn’t work for the government in order to become rich, he’d realized years ago. You did it for the power.
All of that had nearly been lost. Even though he’d covered up the Denham escape and the fiasco at the safe house, plenty of jealous peers within the FBI had been eager for him to take the fall for New York City and the failure to recover the other EMP devices. Those still waited, ticking time bombs, for their enemies to use them as tools of blackmail or economic damage.
Fortunately, Vergone had been able to throw several of his subordinates and at least one of his rivals under the proverbial bus. He’d escaped with a relatively light reprimand.
All I want now is a drink, he thought. His broken cheekbone, hastily treated and set, ached through a haze of painkillers.
Vergone unlocked his door before walking into his apartment. Yes, it was cramped, but it had a fabulous view of the Mall, and he could walk to work.
Closing and locking his door, he turned on the light.
A thin man with the face of death stood in the corner pointing a suppressed pistol at him.
“Denham.”
“Don’t move,” said Skull softly, his gloved hands rock-steady.
“Let’s just take it easy here.”
“Lay your pistol and phone on the counter and step away from them.”
Vergone did as he was told, slowly and carefully. He could see the tension in Skull’s face and trigger finger.
“Now, take off your jacket and sit down.”
Vergone did as he was told. “Coming here was a bad idea.”
“No, what you did to my family at the experimentation camp was a bad idea. A monumentally, historically, incredibly bad idea.”
“So, you found out. Technically, that wasn’t me,” said Vergone. “As a matter of fact, I did what I could to save them once I figured out who they were.”
“To use as leverage against me.”
“Yes...but I still tried to save them, and I had nothing to do with their deaths.”
“I’m not sure I care about technicalities.” Skull shot the agent in the leg.
Vergone screamed and held his thigh with both hands.
“I told you not to yell. Good thing you have one of these nice soundproof apartments. Don’t want the noise of riots and protests disturbing your sleep, after all.”
“You just shot me, you maniac. You shot a federal agent.”
“I know,” said Skull. “Felt good.”
“You’re not going to get away with this. We’ll find you.”
Skull shook his head. “You think that’s a deterrent? To me?”
“There’s a way out of this,” said Vergone. “We can make a deal.”
“There you go,” said Skull with a smile. “Try to talk the gunman down. Convince him he hasn’t crossed a line that he can’t retreat from. Oh, look, your leg’s starting to heal anyway.”
“What?”
“That’s what the Eden Plague does.”
“I’m not an Eden.”
“You are now. I shot you with a SAM round, courtesy of the Free Communities research laboratories. You must have heard of them. One hit and you’re infected.”
“Oh my GOD.”
“I doubt He listens to a man like you, Vergone.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Information. That psychopathic nanny you had watching the girls, Lisa. She was really going to murder that girl. Yet she was an Eden. I know the signs.”
“We all follow orders.”
“No, she wasn’t doing it regretfully, or setting up to fake it. I think she was going to enjoy it.”
Vergone shrugged.
Skull indicated a bottle of Laphroaig brand single-malt Scotch on a side table, surrounded by several highball glasses. “Would you like a drink? Kind of a consolation prize for getting shot.”
Vergone nodded.
“Mind if I have one? Looks like pretty good stuff.”
The agent waved a bloody hand in Skull’s direction. “Be my guest.”
Skull poured generous portions into two crystal glasses and handed one to Vergone. Skull raised his in the agent’s direction. “Cheers.” He took a sip. Rolling it around in his mouth, he nodded. “Damn, that is pretty good. So, back to the topic at hand. How is it that Lisa wasn’t affected by the virtue effect? Have you found a way to beat it? Some drug or treatment?”
“I wish we had, but it’s random. Genetic. I’m told the doctors think it’s a mutation that keeps the virus from damaging the frontal lobe like it does in most of those infected.”
Skull checked back a laugh. “Brain damage is propaganda to scare the masses. Does Daniel Markis seem brain damaged?”
“Maybe he’s one of these lucky ones.”
“You really are brainwashed, aren’t you?”
Vergone merely shook his head in disbelief. “I’d say the same about you.”
Skull growled, “How many of these people would you say are working for the U.S. government.”
“More than you know,” said Vergone with a smile, taking another sip of his drink.
“That’s why I was asking the question: so you can tell me. You sure you’re not brain damaged?”
“I guess I will be soon,” Vergone said. “But I really don’t feel that different yet.”
“Start talking. Tell me about these special Edens.”
“You don’t really think I’m going to give you that information, do you?”
“I don’t think you’re going to give me that information willingly. How much pain can you tolerate?”
“Now that I’m an Eden, quite a bit more, I guess.”
“Unfortunately for you, that’s not how it works. Your senses become sharper, not duller…including your sense of pain.” Skull shot Vergone again, this time in the kneecap.
Vergone screamed longer this time.
Skull waited until the man calmed down, and then held up a large photograph. “This is your mother and father, who live in Tacoma, Washington. They were loving parents who worked hard to put you through school and sacrificed all their lives to get you what you needed. You owe them a great deal.”
Vergone looked at the now-blank space on the wall where two framed pictures had recently hung, and then back at Skull.
“This is your little sister, her husband, their two little boys, and their dog Samson. They live in Boise, Idaho. You don’t see her often, but hardly a week goes by that you don’t call or email them.”
“How the hell do you know all that?”
“I have my sources. You’ve consistently underestimated me, Miles.”
“What do you want?”
“What I keep asking you for. Tell me everything you know about your psychotic Edens and I won’t hunt down these innocents, who have done nothing wrong except have the misfortune of being related to you.”
“You wouldn’t do it,” Vergone said hesitantly.
“Didn’t you say you read my psych profile? Can you be sure? Besides, it’ll be our little secret that you talked. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”
“You’re going to let me live?”
“I’m going to be merciful and play the odds. It’s unlikely you’ll be one of these, these psychos, so making you an Eden is better than killing you. You’ll either stay in your job and be a much better influence on the Bureau, or you’ll have to flee. Either way, I win.”
Vergone took a long slow sip. “Okay, I’ll tell you. Every Eden detention camp has a testing center. They identify those Edens who are not brain damaged and pull them out to be used by the government.”
“Used how?”
“Primarily as infiltrators. Edens think if someone is a fellow Eden, they can be completely trusted. Some infected federal agents were allowed to return to their jobs and join a special unit. My unit.”
“Where have they infiltrated? Into the FC government? Are any close to Daniel Markis?”
“Pro
bably, but I don’t know for sure,” said Vergone. “That’s the CIA’s area.”
Skull thought about the implications of this for a moment.
Vergone smiled. “Thinking about your FC Eden friends, aren’t you? Wondering how many of them have a spy working near them, perhaps even sharing a bed with them. It’s a disturbing thought, isn’t it? A terrible thing not to know who to trust.”
“Give me a name,” said Skull, pointing his pistol at Vergone for emphasis. “Someone in the CIA who can tell me more about the infiltrators.”
Vergone shook his head. “I don’t have that information. You know how the Bureau and the Agency hate each other. Besides, why threaten me? You already said you’ll leave me in place and let the virus do its work.”
“Guess I lied.”
Vergone’s eyes widened. He suddenly threw his empty highball glass at Skull’s head and threw himself toward his weapon. Before he could reach it, Skull shot him five times in the torso, and then once more in the head to ensure not even the Eden Plague could save him.
Staring down at the man, Skull breathed deeply. After reloading and holstering his pistol, he walked over toward the window and looked out on the Washington Monument, lit by spotlights. He slowly poured himself another glass of the Laphroaig before he began tossing the man’s apartment, looking for information that could be of use to him.
Skull recognized that he was good at many things, but he was only great at a few. He felt a sense of focus and eagerness, knowing the way ahead. His purpose for being was clear. A purpose squarely within his skill set’s sweet spot. Killing these special Edens. These psychos, he called them to himself.
It reminded him of a TV series he’d seen once, about a sinister serial killer that only murdered other killers. A man with a code…a code like Skull had now found, after floundering for the last couple of years.
Skull took a break from searching the man’s apartment, putting on some light jazz from Vergone’s impressive collection of vintage vinyl. He also poured himself another Scotch. He couldn’t get over how good it tasted.
Lifting the glass in a toast toward the dead body of Vergone, Skull laughed before taking a slow, savory sip.
***
Jill Repeth looked over at Keith as they lounged on a Cancun beach, fruity drinks in their hands. Waiters bustled to and fro, serving the tourists’ every whim. With tourism down all over, the staff seemed to be working even harder.
“We failed after all,” she said. “And now we’re sitting on a beach while Texas is occupied.”
Keith shrugged philosophically. “You didn’t fail. You completed your mission. The nuke was from an ICBM. At least they couldn’t cover it up, or blame it on the FC.”
“Still feels wrong.”
“The way the world is, some shit’s always going to be going down somewhere. We can’t sit and agonize over it all the time. You deserve this, and you know why.”
“I do? Why?”
“Because soon enough you'll be back in the middle of the fight. Every soldier’s gotta have some R&R.”
“I'm not a soldier, I'm a Marine.”
“Not anymore you're not. You’re a commando, or something like that.”
Their conversation lapse for several long minutes as they stared at the perversely idyllic ocean waves, clouds drifting above.
“What’s your last name, anyway?” Jill asked.
Keith snorted. “Wow. Progress, Reap.”
“We agreed no handles on vacation.”
“What’s wrong with just ‘Keith’?”
Jill rolled up on an elbow and placed a hand on his tattooed chest. “Tell me or I hurt you,” she said with a mock scowl.
“That’s the Jill I know.”
“Well?”
Keith sighed. “I hate it.”
“Tell me, dammit.”
“Kuntz.” He pronounced it Coonts.
“What?”
“Kuntz.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Makes me sound like a pussy. You have no idea how much shit I took in school from the other kids. I thought about changing it, but once I got convicted of my first felony, no judge would sign off on it.”
Jill laughed, and then leaned over to put her head on his shoulder. “I’m used to funny names. And we’re both Edens. We have lots of time to change our names when things calm down.”
“If they ever do. If we live to see it. If –”
“Shut up.” She kissed him, and he kissed her back. “Enjoy today. Tomorrow may never come.”
Keith ran his hand through Jill’s short brown hair. “Repeth seems like a name I could get used to.”
“Better than Kuntz.”
“Got that right. How do we make it happen?”
Jill stared at him, and then disengaged, sitting up. “Oh, boy. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“What’d I say?”
She turned away to lie back down on her lounge chair. “I don’t like being pushed.”
“I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing.”
“Guys never do.”
This time it was Keith’s turn to sigh. “Forget I said anything.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay then.” He reached across to take her hand.
After a moment, she wrapped her fingers into his.
Maybe not Mister Right, but today, I'll settle for Mister Right Now.
The End of Apocalypse Austin.
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Sample from
THE DEMON PLAGUES
Infection Year Ten
Alan “Skull” Denham put his eye to the sight of his venerable Barrett sniper rifle. Mexico City sprawled smoggy as ever; he could just barely see his target area. The fascist United Governments of North America hadn’t done any better than the old Mexican regime had in cleaning the place up. Annexation of Mexico and Canada by the former U.S. had proven to be the proverbial anaconda swallowing the buffalo; the process seemed inevitable, but very, very slow.
Skull was indigestion.
The cold logic of insurgency dictated that he kill as many northerners as possible and spare the locals, sowing distrust between Latinos and gringos. When he did, government cracked down, locals protested and rioted and bombed.
Skull loved it.
This target was special: a Security Service Psycho officer, one of the tiny percentage of infected humanity that the Plague turned evil…or at least narcissistic. Most people considered the two the same.
Like many low-level Psychos in the Unionist-Party-dominated UG, this one led an SS death squad, searching out the UGNA’s enemies, criminal or political, real or imagined.
Crosshairs drifted downward to rest on the norteamericano. Skull inhaled, then let his breath out most of the way and paused naturally. His finger gently squeezed the trigger, surprising him with the sharp report. All well-aimed shots were unanticipated; that was a secret of the sniper, especially for shots like this at over eight hundred meters.
He didn’t have to see the Psycho fall, didn’t have to observe his head explode like a ripe melon. Zen-like, as soon as the bullet left the barrel he had felt the shot was good. Skull was already moving from his position before the first sirens wailed and the SS airmobile reaction team spun into the air.
He slid the weapon into the beat-up guitar case, barely large enough to contain the gun. A sombrero settled onto his head, completing his mariachi costume. With his dark eyes and deeply tanned face wrinkled from a lifetime of outdoor exposure, he became just another local musician heading to a concert. His Apache grandfather had bequeathed him the ability to tan darker than any ordinary white man, and he blended in among the South and Central Americans with ease. Down the stairs, off the roof of the building and into the slums, in two minutes he had disappea
red among the bars and cantinas and squalid apartments.
Helicopters pummeled the air overhead, too late. The crowds on the dirty streets hid him, one among many, as he made his way to his dwelling.
In his tiny rented room he searched his own face, dark eyes like pits in the cracked mirror. Over fifty now, he was resigned to the aging as long as he could keep the hate alive. He nursed it like a beloved child; the killing gave his life meaning. Perhaps someday the fear of age and infirmity would tempt him to accept the emasculating Eden Plague virus that had upended his world.
But not today. Today he had filled his cup of death. Today he was whole.
Water on his face, on his hands. In the fading light coming through the cheap curtains it turned to blood, but he ignored the sight by long practice. He reached for a bottle of mescal. “Arriba, abajo, al centro y pa ´dentro,” he murmured, and then drank a slug from the neck. The traditional toast of “up, down, center and in” seemed to make the smoky liquor taste better.
Opening the guitar case, he gently removed his exquisite rifle. Before he stripped it down and cleaned it, he took out a knife and made a thin hash mark at the end of the row on the stock.
His fingertips touched the four hundred and fifty-five tiny indentations, one for each kill with the weapon. The first ninety-six had been the enemies of his country, back when he had a country, back when the United States was something to believe in. He’d killed in Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and countless other places.
The rest of the marks…those were personal. Payback for his old commander Zeke, payback for hacker Vinny, payback for the innocents in the death camps and for the other millions murdered by the chickenshit jackbooted thugs of the Unionist Party and the United Governments, those that had corrupted his flag, stole his Constitution, and murdered all he held sacred.
Who needs sex, he thought, when killing is so much more satisfying.
Closing the knife, he began to lovingly service his weapon.
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