Plague Year

by Jeff Carlson

  If this destroyed man wanted to show them up, he might finally relinquish his secrets.

  Hernandez sketched a salute, hiding the minicam down by his hip in his left hand. “I’m Major Frank Hernandez,” he said, “USMC Second Division and expedition commander.”

  Nice. Overkill, but nice. They had to make Sawyer feel important, make it clear they’d brought their best.

  Even D.J. was courteous. “My name is Dr. Dhanum—”

  “Yaowp!” Sawyer lurched, both eyes blinking shut. For a moment Ruth thought it was a word she hadn’t understood, but Sawyer wasn’t interested in hellos. She supposed Cam had explained who had come, and that was plenty for him.

  She watched his loose mouth, analyzing his sounds.

  “Ayuhn’velah annabuh bee, a’cos assigned the way.”

  “I can develop an antibody,” Cam told them. “Archos was designed that way, as an adaptable template—”

  “Yahp!” Sawyer barked again at Cam’s elaboration. “ ‘Dadable templut,” he said, with all the petulance of a three-year-old who has ritualized a favorite story.

  Cam carefully repeated it. “An adaptable template.”

  Ruth looked away, a slow cringe, the horror in her still growing. The others were also silent.

  Sawyer’s brain had been ravaged as badly as his skin.

  He glared at them, defiant, challenging. Cam made a patting gesture and Ruth knelt to the scuffed wood floor, putting herself below Sawyer’s bed rather than continuing to stand over him. Basic psychology. They might lessen his agitation by demonstrating that they were a willing audience. Hernandez and Todd followed suit, but D.J. glanced at Cam. Cam stayed on his feet. D.J. reluctantly hunkered down.

  Sawyer mumbled again and Cam said, “We were going to cure cancer in two years. Maybe less.”

  D.J.’s brow wrinkled. “This was all in our—”

  Ruth hit him, slapping her knuckles against his leg. Yes, they already knew these basics, but they were damn well going to let Sawyer brag. The name archos was new and possibly useful, another angle for the FBI to take with their research, patent records, incorporation files. They might be able to outfox Sawyer if he gave them enough clues but still wouldn’t cooperate.

  Or if he was unable to cooperate. Lord only knew what was happening inside his head.

  He lectured them on the mechanics of the nano, slurring, staring down at his bedsheets or dragging that lopsided gaze across their faces. But he was either still unaccustomed to or refused to accept the condition of his body, and repeatedly coughed for air in midsyllable. Once he started to retch. After each fit he pulled his good arm over his mouth, wiping away drool—and he began to bump the back of his hand against his lips compulsively.

  Cam translated with determination and patience, though after a while he sat on the edge of the bed and stretched out his knee. His intonation was sometimes uncertain but he did not hesitate over technical phrases. He had been the one who spoke with James, she decided, although Sawyer probably addressed the microphone directly on occasion.

  Ruth had wanted to feel the same sympathy she’d experienced for Cam, but it was a very different emotion inside her now. Sawyer must have been a great man, capable of great things, to have played any part in developing the archos prototype, yet his decision to withhold the location of his lab was unforgivable. It was a threat to her. It didn’t matter that it might not have been a wholly conscious decision.

  Sawyer had not let his guilt become the burden that was so evident in Cam. What remained of him seemed possessed by the bitter rage of an invalid, and he was crippled further by his awareness of everything he’d lost.

  He erupted with that rough shout again and again, at himself when his body failed, at Cam for guessing the wrong words or even for correctly anticipating what he planned to say next.

  Hernandez filmed the two men, the minicam tucked against his body. The angle looked poor and the room was darkening as twilight settled outside the square window, but a good audio recording would be the most important thing.

  Sawyer was selling himself.

  Did he think he needed to convince them of his identity, or was he only striving to keep his past straight in his own mind? Ruth supposed he’d prevented them from making introductions so he wouldn’t have to use their names. He knew his limitations. His short-term memory was unreliable, yet he remained canny enough to try to conceal this weakness.

  He was excusing himself.

  Twice more he laboriously explained that archos had been designed to save lives. Four times he insisted he hadn’t played any part in allowing the prototype to get loose.

  Ruth was reminded of a toddler again, attempting to make something real by chanting it over and over.

  “What was your specialty?” she asked, after twenty minutes. She didn’t know how Sawyer would react to the interruption, but already he was tiring and she was afraid he’d keep them captive all night even as he grew more incoherent. Maybe it would have been better to let D.J. grill him from the start.

  “The rep efficiency is mine,” Sawyer told them, through Cam, and his pride was fierce enough to mold his slack, eroded face into what she thought was a smile.

  It was that simple. The wreckage of his self-esteem was propped up on who he had been, and only on who he had been, and he was terrified that they would exclude him after retrieving the files and equipment.

  There wasn’t anything else left for him.

  “Replication speed is going to be our biggest hurdle,” Ruth said, which wasn’t untrue. “James told you we have a working discrim key, right? You’ll have to look it over, but the vaccine nano won’t hold up if we can’t streamline the rep process.”

  He regarded her quietly, perhaps judging her sincerity. She wondered how well he could see now in the shadows.

  D.J. shifted on the hard floor and managed to put his hand down with a slap, drawing everyone’s attention. “I’d say it’s worth redesigning the heat engine,” he said. “We don’t need the fuse and that’s another way to shave some additional mass.”

  Sawyer’s smile returned. This must have been his first opportunity to talk shop in fifteen months. He jabbered and Cam said, “Right. Except the design work is already done. Freedman added the fuse later. We can build straight off of the original schematic.”

  “Fantastic,” Ruth said. That would save them days or even weeks—and he’d given them another clue. Freedman. Cam spoke for Sawyer again: “We’ll fly out tomorrow?” Ruth straightened, barely able to contain her excitement. Hernandez said, “Yes. Tomorrow morning.” Sawyer nodded, satisfied. But the silence lingered. Sawyer dabbed at his mouth and

  D.J. shifted his weight once more. Hernandez said, “It would be better if you told us where tonight.”

  “Whar?”

  “There’s a lot of planning to take care of.”

  “Col’ado!” Sawyer’s eye rolled with confusion and fury, and Ruth clenched her fist.

  He expected them to take him east. Why? What did he think was waiting for him there? Safety, food, intensive medical attention—but no doctor would ever be able to fix him.

  Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he had no interest in saving them if they couldn’t save him.

  Hernandez kept calm. “Not a chance,” he said. “That was never the deal. We can’t waste the fuel going back and forth, and we need you to make sure we recover everything important.”

  “Fuhgyou. Col’ado.”

  “They told us,” Cam said, but Sawyer whipped his head back and forth in a stiff motion that bent his torso. One leg kicked up beneath the blankets as he lost his balance, and Cam grabbed his arm.

  Cam shook him. “They told us you had to show them first.”

  “L’go!” His voice was a screech. “L’go me!”

  Cam obeyed. Cam pulled his gnarled fingers from Sawyer’s shirt but then reversed direction, surging his weight into the other man, shoving his open palm against Sawyer’s ribs. It looked spontaneous. It loo
ked like an act of long-suppressed misery, and Cam’s regret was obvious and immediate. He grabbed at Sawyer again as Sawyer collapsed on the bed, mewling in pain. “Aa aaa! Aa!”

  Hernandez jumped to his feet, the camera left on the floor, yet he stayed back as Cam leaned over Sawyer, patting his side and murmuring, “Sorry— Hey, I’m sorry—”

  Sawyer’s response surprised her, not spite, not more of that cruel glee at his own power. He answered Cam with the same apologetic tone. “Na’now, ’kay? Na’now.”

  “Not now, okay, you bet.” Cam turned toward them, but with his eyes averted. “No more right now.”

  The feast was a disaster too. Leadville had included fresh meat in their provisions, a slab of ribs large enough to identify as cow. They’d also brought charcoal and the soldiers layered a broad, shallow pit with two full bags of briquettes. That smoky aroma was torture by itself, the ghost of summertime family gatherings, and the smell became unbearable when they placed the meat on a grill set low over the embers.

  Everyone clustered around the fire pit except Sawyer, the two medics, and Dr. Anderson. Cam had also stayed inside, in case Sawyer was uncooperative, and Hernandez double-checked that their portions were held back for later.

  The sky deepened enough to show the first stars. Todd said the brightest dot was Jupiter and one of the soldiers said it was Venus. The kids pushed through the small crowd, yelling. Ruth sat right up front, dulled by exhaustion and disappointment, alive with hunger. Her back was cool, her face too warm. Her arm ached inside her cast.

  Maureen’s strident voice lifted her gaze from the sizzle and pop of the meat. “You have to take us with you!”

  Across the fire pit, Hernandez had been talking quietly with the Special Forces captain and two of the pilots. Maureen stood behind them now, having edged close enough to eavesdrop.

  Hernandez turned and shook his head. “We don’t have enough containment suits, and we might be down there for hours.”

  “But come back for us. Take us back with you.”

  “We won’t want to risk an extra landing or use up the fuel.”

  “You landed fine!”

  The four children, parading among the soldiers with their stick weapons, had gone still and silent at Maureen’s outburst. Now all of them fled, ducking through the taller adults.

  “You can’t just leave us here!”

  “I’m sorry. We’ll give you as many supplies as—”

  “You can’t! You can’t!”

  Ruth returned her gaze to the fire pit as Maureen pleaded in a lower voice and the other California woman began to cry. They didn’t realize they were so much better off here, even if the planes had been headed back to Leadville.

  It was interesting that Maureen seemed to have the same false ideal of Colorado as Sawyer, and Lord knew Ruth had created her own unrealistic expectations while she was still aboard the ISS. Maybe everyone needed the possibility of a safe haven, somewhere, to keep them going. Ruth didn’t know how to feel about that. It made her sad and it made her afraid.

  She rubbed her eyes to hide her face and wished again that there was another way.

  The meat was phenomenal, crisp fat, nearly raw against the bone, and she ate too quick, trying not to wolf it down but not entirely in control of herself.

  Hernandez made sure Ruth had her own tent, a low two-man dome made for backpacking. The soldiers staked it down between the long body of the C-130 and their own, larger tents.

  She washed her face and hands at a plastic tub, wanting at least to pull off her top and sponge her neck and armpits. A bath would be better. But she had no privacy, walled in by soldiers, and water was a carefully measured resource here. Unlike Leadville, surrounded by mountain ranges and snowpack, this little island had only two dribbling springs, one of which dried up each summer. Maureen had warned Hernandez about rationing twice in Ruth’s hearing.

  She lingered over the tub, dripping, reluctant to settle in for the night despite feeling totally depleted. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep. The bugs here were creepy, pervasive, and loud—and her fear was the same, nonstop flickers of adrenaline. Hernandez had relayed their clues over the radio, the names archos and Freedman, but it might be days before the FBI produced anything useful.

  The conspiracy would be uncovered long before then.

  If Hernandez had included her name in his report, even just to praise her efforts, it might be soon. Tonight. What would happen? Fuel was so precious, would they fly her back? Would there be a gunfight as one group of soldiers turned on the other?

  She was glad when Cam banged on a supply crate and yelled, “I have to see her!”

  From her perspective the knot of men were a single, complicated shadow, their flashlights aimed into Cam’s body. The soldiers appeared ready to turn him back. Ruth hurried over and said, “Hold on.”

  “I want to try again with Sawyer,” he told her, “just you and me so he’s not so outnumbered.”

  “I’ll go,” D.J. said, striding up beside Ruth’s shoulder.

  Cam shook his head. “Didn’t ask you.”

  He moved through the dark like he was born to it, not at all hindered by his limp. Ruth and her Marine escorts kept to the bobbing white cone of their flashlights, staring down, sweeping the smooth asphalt road for nonexistent hazards. The fifty yards between their camp and the cabin were enough distance for Cam to leave them behind.

  Two windows shone with lanternlight, at the cabin’s front and at the side. Sawyer’s room. The night, so absolute, might have made Ruth uneasy but instead heightened her sense of inclusion. The cool dark seemed so much smaller than daylight, hiding the miles of empty land that fell away below them.

  She heard the boys inside, faintly, then the deeper voice of a man. The soldiers’ flashlights jabbed up and caught Cam and Dr. Anderson standing together by the front door. Their hands rose to shield their faces.

  “Thank you,” she said to her two soldiers. “Why don’t you wait here.”

  “Ah, no ma’am.” Staff Sergeant Gilbride shook his head.

  “The whole point is to keep from overcrowding him—”

  “We’ll stand outside his room. He won’t know we’re there.” Gilbride started forward, gesturing to Cam, and the rich lanternlight spilled over them as the door opened. They stepped inside, Ruth caught between Gilbride and the other soldier.

  What had Hernandez told his men, to be careful that these people didn’t take her hostage and demand to be flown to Colorado? Sawyer was more valuable than she, and they had done everything in their power to make him available...

  The three boys had several decks of cards laid out on the floor beside their lantern, a game she didn’t recognize. Dr. Anderson knelt among them. Cam led the two Marines and Ruth toward the short hall at the back of the room, pausing there.

  “You seem like you have your head on straight,” Cam said, making eye contact, and Ruth shrugged at the compliment. Then he lowered his voice. “Flirt with him.”

  “What? Yeah, okay.” She had been carrying her laptop at her side in her good hand. Now she brought the thin case up against her chest, smiling—and irritated—at the idea that the real reason he’d chosen her was for her boobs. Wrong woman.

  He didn’t smile back. “I’m serious. Don’t go overboard, let’s just see what happens.”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  Sawyer’s room had a rancid stink. His guts were a mess and his digestive process was inconsistent. Dr. Anderson had said that breaking down solid foods took nearly as much out of him as he gained in nutrition, describing lumpy stools and bloating and screaming fits, and Ruth wondered if this flatulence was the result of tempting him with beef ribs. She wondered if Cam had done it deliberately, to hurt and distract him.

  The relationship between these men was one she might never fully comprehend, brother, enemy, each of them dependent upon and simultaneously dominant over the other.

  “Hey, buddy,” Cam said, “you feel b
etter?”

  “Nuh.” Sawyer lay on his right side, his withered side, knees drawn up beneath the covers. His other hand shifted along the edge of the mattress, crablike, groping and pausing and groping again. His eyelids were low, his attention drifting.

  A part of her wished she wasn’t here. She had no idea what to do. Her impulse was to shout and beg, but there was so little they could offer someone in Sawyer’s condition. She thought ruefully of Ulinov, poor Ulinov, who had tried for days and weeks to make her return to her work when she would only stare out through the lab module’s viewport.

  Sawyer surprised her again. “Came back,” he said clearly enough, in a voice that was contrite, almost childishly so.

  Ruth felt worn down to nerves and bone, but Sawyer, being so much weaker, had been reduced to an utterly vulnerable state—and Cam had expected it, planned for it.

  “She wants to hear more about your ideas,” Cam said.

  “A lot more.” Ruth hefted the laptop. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

  “Hah.” Sawyer’s grunt was ambiguous to her, but he tried to raise his head, a tremor in his neck muscles quickly becoming a shudder. He slumped back down onto the mattress with a sigh.

  Cam hauled him up into a sitting position, untangling his strengthless legs. Sawyer cried out. Ruth knelt away from them and busied herself with her laptop, sneaking glances. Finally he was settled. Too bad Cam had positioned himself on Sawyer’s left side, his strong side—probably by habit, because it was easier to talk to the living half of his face.

  Ruth sat close, her bulky cast like a weapon or a wall between them, his drooping eye and cheek a barrier of a different sort. “This is the best we’ve put together,” she said, placing the open laptop on her legs.

  The first graphic was Vernon’s, a simplified progression intended to wow nontechnical big shots. It had four squares across the top and four across the bottom, like the panels of a Sunday paper cartoon. It showed an oversized, two-dimensional star of an HK ANN attacking and then breaking down an oversized fishhook of an archos nano. The written description for each panel was ten words or less.