Crawlers

by John Shirley

  Stanner looked at Bentwaters. “Someone’s hit my daughter. Was it you?”

  Shannon closed her eyes and sobbed, just once. “Dad.”

  “Quiet, young lady, please,” Rowse said, tightening his grip on her arm.

  Stanner’s hands began to sweat on the gun.

  Bentwaters licked his lips and looked at the girl. Then at the gun in Stanner’s hands. His eyes danced with fear. “Henri, no, I didn’t hit her. And I didn’t tell them to bring her here.

  “And I’ve told her everything,” Bentwaters went on breathlessly. “It seemed only fair. The team that was following you, from the Agency—when they lost you, they went and picked her up, brought her into town. Listen, they got Gaitland. He came over here to see what he could find out, and we think he’s dead. I came over separately and—look, I’m sorry about this, Major. About the girl. About you running up against all this. I just wanted to inspect the site, see if the diagnosis was as you seemed to think—that the thing had gotten away from us. I asked for an escort, over at the NSA, because I figured it could be dangerous, but, uh, all they’d give me was Dirkowski here. And he—” Bentwaters broke off, licking his lips.

  Stanner looked at Dirkowski.

  He’s one, too, Stanner thought. “Okay. What’s the Pentagon doing about this?”

  “They’re playing ball with these things—for now. They don’t want a big detachment over here, drawing attention. They’re trying to keep a lid on the media until they can figure out what to do.”

  Stanner shook his head in amazement. “They think they can contain this? Keep people in the dark forever? You know, an idea has been growing on me for a while, Bentwaters. And I’ll tell you what it is: The government thinks the American people are stupid— but they’re not stupid, they just feel powerless. They’ll figure out someday that they’re not powerless.”

  Bentwaters smiled sadly. “Someday won’t help us.”

  Stanner looked narrowly at Bentwaters. “I figure the Facility must have some kind of contingency plan?”

  Bentwaters flicked his eyes at the former Green Beret without turning his head—trying to catch Stanner’s attention with that motion of his eyes. Don’t say too much in front of this thing.

  Stanner nodded, just perceptibly.

  Bentwaters sighed, his voice quavering. “It’s not about the Facility—not around here. It’s them. They’re getting ready to—”

  “Shut up,” the Green Beret said. And there was a flicker of metal in his throat, as if something had looked out of it, just for a moment. “Just give him the message.”

  Stanner looked at Bentwaters, wondering if he was still human. He seemed very humanly scared—but that could be an act.

  That’s when Stanner noticed the thin, shiny, clinging ribbon around Bentwaters’s neck. Like a living necklace of dull, shifting chrome; it quivered like a line of ants, so crowded together you couldn’t make out one from the next.

  Stanner knew what it was. The “ants” were each made of smaller individualized components; and those were organized of active “interdependent but independent” particles that were smaller yet.

  Bentwaters saw Stanner’s look—and reached up self-consciously, as if to touch the “necklace.” Then hastily drew his hand back. “You see it? That thing—it’ll enter me, change me, if they give it the signal. If I don’t do what they say. They got into the personnel files at the Facility. They know all about us. They’ve seen your psych evaluation, everything. They want me like I am now, so I can talk to you—so you know you’re talking to a human being. They didn’t think you’d deal with one of them.”

  “They’re right,” Stanner admitted. He turned to Shannon. “They put anything on you, Shannon?”

  She swallowed visibly and shook her head.

  Bentwaters glanced at Shannon. “They were afraid if they put one on her, you’d assume she was a lost cause. You had to see her . . . unmolested.”

  “Right again. Shannon, how’d you end up here, honey?”

  Shannon licked her split lip. “I—some men came and got me. They said you were out of control, and I had to talk to you. They brought me here. They were going to use me to bring you back—to whichever of these asshole agencies you work for—and they—” She squeezed her eyes shut, wiped away tears, and then went on. “But they’re dead now. They’re all cut up and . . . I don’t understand any of this, Dad.”

  “Just be patient, hon, it’ll be all right,” Stanner said, trying to sound as if he believed it. “Bentwaters, they killed her escort, took her and you for bait? That what happened?”

  Bentwaters licked his lips and nodded. “That’s more or less it. You’re all that’s keeping me and the girl human. They want you out of town, and they want Cruzon dead—or turned over to them. And they want a girl you’ve got with you. Name of Adair something.”

  “They want me out of town? Not dead?”

  “Having you dead is just an ideal. You’re a loose cannon. But it seems they’re convinced there’s something you’ve got that’ll hurt them. They’re concerned that if they just shoot you down, someone else might just set off that something . . .”

  Stanner gave Bentwaters a hard look. “They know what that is?”

  Bentwaters shrugged. “They’ve guessed.”

  Stanner nodded. So his bluff had worked. And there was just the possibility it might not be bluff—if Bentwaters had come through. Stanner didn’t have the device yet—but Bentwaters had been smart enough to make them think he did. “So, they want to make sure I don’t set that ‘something’ off.”

  “And they want to make some kind of deal with the Pentagon. So you and your daughter and I can live through this thing—as human beings—if you turn those two in the car over to them. And then we carry back their message.”

  “What kind of message?”

  “Terms. They don’t want the whole world, at least not all at once. If the Pentagon backs off, they’re willing to negotiate. Maybe— for the West Coast. For a while.”

  Shannon was looking in horror back and forth between Bentwaters and Stanner. “Dad, who are you dealing with? What would you be giving them?”

  “I don’t know yet, Shannon.” Stanner turned to Bentwaters. “They assume I’ll play ball?”

  Bentwaters shrugged. “You’ve worked for the Facility for years. And they’ve got your daughter.” He reached up to close the last two inches on the FEMA jacket. “Shit, it’s cold out here. You got a cigarette?”

  “I don’t smoke,” Stanner said. Bentwaters had confirmed for Stanner what he suspected. If the crawlers were trying to cut a deal, then they were worried. Which meant that they’d found out that some sort of containment plan was in the offing. The Pentagon, the Facility, and probably the White House all knew how far it had gone. And that meant the Feds have to take radical steps to end this. Not in the way he’d planned it, though. Something more decisive, and extreme.

  Anything extreme enough to stop the All of Us would probably kill everyone in town. Not just the ones who’d been changed over. Having to sacrifice a few researchers out in Lab 23—that had been hard, but they’d known the risks, so it was something he could live with. But this . . .

  Thousands of normal people were still hiding in town, people who hadn’t become crawlers. A whole town would be massacred to hide a secret.

  “Dad,” Shannon began.

  He tried the encouraging smile again. It didn’t feel convincing. “I’m sorry this happened to you, baby.”

  “It didn’t just happen!” she hissed, glaring at him past her tears. “You got into it and that got me into it. This ugly filthy shit that you work in.”

  No answer came to him, for that.

  “We want those two in the car,” Morgenthal said. “And we want you to come with us peacefully, for debriefing. You tell us where your little toy is, and you negotiate for us with your people at the Pentagon. Then you and your daughter can go free.”

  “And me!” Bentwaters put in, his voice breaking up
under the pressure of desperation. “You promised I could go with Stanner!”

  Morgenthal ignored him.

  “Most of our people are occupied elsewhere, Stanner,” Rowse said, taking it up seamlessly. “We don’t want a lot of noise and mess now. And we don’t want the state police coming in here. You understand, Major? But if we have to, we’ll do it the hard, noisy way. We were just hoping you’d make it easier on all of us.”

  Stanner hesitated. Rowse added, “And if you’re thinking you can point your weapon at us and force us to back off—no. I’m not, in fact, a guy named Rowse anymore, Stanner. I’m the All of Us. We don’t just throw away our ‘human resources.’ ” He smiled at his little irony. “But don’t think I really care if you kill me. Because I’m something you can’t kill, even if you kill this Rowse body. You understand?” And he flashed Stanner what remained of his politician’s smile.

  “Sure,” Stanner said. “You feel that way because you’re just part of a goddamn machine. That I understand.”

  Rowse’s smile didn’t fade. “I’ll wait thirty seconds more for your decision. You come with us quietly, and you have a deal. We have other plans for Bentwaters. So that leaves you to act as our intermediary.”

  Bentwaters had gone white-faced.

  Stanner’s hands tightened on the gun. His knuckles were stinging in the damp wind. He could smell the sea, very faintly. He heard a semi truck pass on the freeway, its driver blissfully unaware of all this, probably just thinking about the next stop and a girl in Reno.

  “Your daughter and I have been here an hour, waiting for you,” the Green Beret said. “You coming or not?”

  Stanner let out a long slow sigh. “Okay,” he said.

  “Then bring the Adair Leverton girl over here to us. We want her, too,” Rowse said.

  Stanner nodded and backed away from them about ten steps. “Hold tight there, Shannon.”

  Licking his lips, looking into Stanner’s eyes, Bentwaters said, “Major, you really don’t want to go without me.”

  Stanner didn’t answer—but he guessed what Bentwaters meant. Bentwaters had the data he’d asked for.

  But they weren’t going to let Bentwaters go with him.

  Stanner hesitated, then turned and walked back to the Quiebra police car where Cruzon and “the Adair girl” waited.

  Out of the corner of his eye he caught a movement, a small car swinging out from behind a Shell station, pulling up at the edge of the parking area, facing the street. He glanced that way. A man he’d never seen before was behind the wheel, with a lean teenage boy who looked familiar at his side.

  Oh, right: It was the conspiracy-theory kid from the site and the high school. Waylon. They just sat in the idling car, watching.

  Stanner figured they’d planned on using the freeway ramp to escape from town, saw that it was blocked. Now they were watching to see what happened.

  Stanner reached the cop car and murmured to Cruzon, “Sorry, Cruzon.”

  Ignoring Cruzon’s inquiring look, Stanner opened the back door of the cop car, reached in, grabbed Adair by the wrist, and pulled her out to stand in the street.

  She just looked at him, her eyes big. She looked at the people up at the entrance to the freeway. And she looked like she might bolt.

  “Just hold on,” he told her, as Cruzon got out of the car.

  “What’re you doing?” Cruzon asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Stanner said, and cracked Cruzon on the side of the head with the butt of the M16. Not too hard, but hard enough to knock him back against the open front door, to spin him half around. He reached out and pulled Cruzon’s sidearm from his holster, then pointed it with his left hand. “Walk up toward the roadblock, there, Commander. Do it. You, too, Adair.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Cruzon said, clutching his head. He muttered what was probably a curse in Tagalog.

  “Adair, let’s go. Move toward the freeway,” Stanner said.

  “What you going to do if she doesn’t?” Cruzon asked bitterly. “Shoot her in the back? Maybe they’d like it if you did that. You’d score points.”

  “Just go on where I told you,” Stanner said, pointing the M16 at Cruzon. He had it propped against his right hip. He shoved Cruzon’s pistol into his own waistband, in front.

  Stanner herded Cruzon and the girl toward the roadblock at the freeway on-ramp. The right side of the cop’s head was bleeding and he was a little unsteady on his feet. “I guess maybe it was some kind of trade, your daughter for me?”

  “Something like that.” It seemed to be taking forever to walk to the roadblock. “Now shut up and go.”

  Cruzon snorted. “You really think they’re going to give her to you like she’s supposed to be? Or even let you go?”

  “Just shut up and hurry. Let’s get this the fuck over with, Commander.” He started to tell Cruzon something more, but he was too close now. He might be overheard.

  They were about a dozen paces from the roadblock, Adair walking as if in a dream, Cruzon trudging slowly behind her—when Stanner pretended to shove Cruzon with his left hand to hurry him. Leaning in close, even snarling, “Hurry up, you little Flip asshole!”

  Cruzon almost turned his head to look when he felt something pushed into his own waistband.

  “Don’t look back,” Stanner said almost inaudibly, between clenched teeth. “Can you feel your gun down there? Just nod once.”

  Cruzon nodded.

  Stanner took a deep breath. “Head shots ought to slow them down.”

  Eight, nine more paces. They were within a few steps of his daughter. He spoke to Dirkowski. “Start my daughter toward me, if you want them.”

  “We’ve got them right now,” the Green Beret pointed out, and raised the Uzi.

  “Shannon, get down!” Stanner shouted, and he shoved Adair to his left so she fell sprawling in the street, as Cruzon yanked the gun out of the back of his waistband.

  “Run, girl!” Cruzon shouted at Adair, as he got a bead with the pistol.

  The Green Beret was aiming the Uzi at Adair as she got up to run. The first burst from the Uzi smacked the asphalt where Adair had been lying.

  Shannon tore herself free from Rowse’s grip and threw herself flat.

  Stanner fired at the Green Beret’s head and caught it with three solid rounds; the soldier danced back and fell.

  Waylon was shouting. Adair reached his car, grabbing at a door handle.

  Rowse ran toward the roadblock cars, shouting. The marine at the roadblock had set himself to leap, but three rounds from Cruzon’s pistol jerked him back, flailing. Morgenthal fell, spasming under a burst from Stanner’s M16.

  Bentwaters and Shannon both were screaming. Stanner grabbed Shannon’s wrist, shouted at her over the roar of Cruzon’s gun, then she was up and running, Bentwaters right behind her.

  The crawlers in the cop cars were firing, but the shots went wild. Morgenthal was up again and loping toward them on all fours.

  Cruzon fired low at the cars in the roadblock, bursting three tires. Then he ran out of bullets and turned to run.

  Stanner knew—as he emptied his clip, knocking Morgenthal down again—it was too far back to Cruzon’s car. They’d never make it.

  But a midsize sedan pulled up in his path, and a back door flew open. The Waylon kid and the older guy shouted at them to get in. Adair was already huddled in the backseat.

  Shannon and Cruzon and Bentwaters piled into the sedan, cramming up against Adair. Bullets smacked into the rear fender and rang from the pavement as Stanner tried to follow—but it was too crowded.

  He grabbed hold of the open back door as best he could as the car spun to the right in a tight circle, and hung on as it accelerated down the road, away from the freeway. He clung to the door and to someone’s hand inside, he wasn’t sure whose. One of his feet was on the bottom edge of the car’s floor, at the door, the other hanging free. He glanced over his shoulder.

  The cars behind them had each lost tires, and the Green Beret was
still sprawled, twitching, damaged past moving, but the other crawlers were furiously pursuing—on foot. Running along the street. Morgenthal, full of gunshot but still coming, and Rowse and the two cops—and they were on all fours, their hands and feet extended from their ankles, leaping high into the air, bounding as fast as the fugitive car, thirty, forty miles per hour.

  But as Stanner crammed in with the others in the back, thinking of circus clowns, barely able to close the door behind him, the car picked up speed, roaring through twenty-five-mile-an-hour zones at fifty, sixty, seventy-five, till at last they left their pursuers behind.

  Stanner decided the man driving was probably Waylon’s father. Family resemblance. Adair tapped the driver on the shoulder and pointed to a side street.

  “Okay, I’m sure as hell open for suggestions,” Waylon’s dad said hoarsely. So he followed her mute directions.

  December 14, noon

  Vinnie knew for sure his mother was dead when he saw her climbing across the roof.

  He’d come back and found the house empty. The doors standing open. She always locked the doors, even when she was at home. He thought she was dead, he was even pretty sure of it, but he refused to believe it till he could see what remained of her.

  He had called for her, wailed to himself when she wouldn’t answer, called some more as he went through the rooms, over and over. He wished he could ask the neighbors, but first of all, he had a hard time asking anyone anything anytime, and second, they didn’t seem to be around.

  They might be where Mother was.

  She didn’t come home during the night. He might manage to tell the police things so they could understand, if he really concentrated. But he was afraid to call the police. He wasn’t sure why, except that when he’d passed them on the street he could feel they were all wrong. And sometimes he could hear them talking in his head.

  “They use words but they’re words stolen from cradles,” he muttered, as he rocked furiously in his mother’s rocking chair. “Slave words all strung in a wire and spinning like the Mechmort in Starbots. Transform, transform, Starbots, transform and defend!”