Plague Year

by Jeff Carlson

She blundered on. “What’s the point of driving back if we’re not positive we have what we came for?”

  “I think she’s right.” That was D.J. “We have six hours. I say let’s allocate half of it to test series before you start throwing things on the trailer.”

  Lord God, had she sounded even half as arrogant herself? There was so much to think about— Ruth hurried for a more diplomatic tone. “We’re not asking you to waste time standing around, there’s plenty of gear to load up in the meantime.”

  “What makes you think there are generators here?”

  “Freedman knew what she was working with. Look at this isolation chamber. You don’t build something like this without putting in backup power. The public grid is too unreliable. You lose electricity, you lose containment.”

  “All right.” Hernandez adjusted as easily as that, even though his plan must have been like clockwork in his mind, ticking smoothly ever since they’d left Colorado. “We’ll give you two hours. No more. No argument. And one of you starts ID’ing equipment right now so we can get the ball rolling.”

  He was a good man, better than Leadville deserved. What had James said? I think he’d give his life to protect us.

  Very soon she would betray him because of his integrity.

  “Captain,” Hernandez continued, “locate the generators and have your guys look them over. Hermano, how’s Mr. Sawyer?”

  The beige suits rearranged themselves and several moved toward the only door out of the lab, Captain Young instructing his team to switch to channel six.

  Cam rolled Sawyer forward as he answered Hernandez. “He wants to talk to Ruth, sir,” Cam said.

  She was obvious in the group, one-armed, her torso misshapen by the cast. Cam aimed Sawyer right at her. Ruth hunched down and took another deep breath, frantic to compose herself.

  Sawyer’s faceplate was marked with odd, ghostly streaks. Finger smudges. He’d dirtied his gloves on the tires of his wheelchair and then tried repeatedly to scratch at his lumpy scars, or to hide from their surroundings, or possibly even to take off his helmet as he forgot himself.

  Ruth saw awareness in him now. That one bright eye glared out from his slack, lopsided expression.

  “Wuh’ere,” he said, faint without a radio. “Yuhgamme’ere.”

  “You got me here,” Cam translated.

  That he needed to have it confirmed spoke volumes about his mental state. “Of course.” She made a smile. “We’re going to turn on the power, take your hardware for a little test-drive.”

  “Yuh.” He jerked his head in approval.

  “I’ve been in nanotech more than ten years and never seen anything like this.” Small talk in the graveyard.

  But Sawyer’s head convulsed in a side-to-side motion rather than up and down. He didn’t want coaxing or compliments. He had finally set aside his ego.

  “Ubstuhs,” he said, blinking. He’d lost sight of her when he shook his head, and his eye tracked feverishly before he found her again. Was it desperation in his gaze? He grumbled and Cam said, “Look upstairs. Freedman kept dupes everywhere, at home, in her office. I think Dutchess only cleaned out the lab.”

  Ruth resisted the urge to turn and go herself, still wary of upsetting him. “D.J.?”

  “I heard it. Ask where exactly—”

  Sawyer remained cooperative. “Freedman’s office is the second door from the top of the stairs,” Cam said for him. “On the left. Try her desk or her file cabinet.”

  D.J. and two Marines hustled away as Special Forces Master Sergeant Olson came back on radio. “Olson here. Looks like the generators ran dry, sir. Probably start up if we refuel.”

  “Give it a shot,” Hernandez told him.

  Cam spoke again in tandem with Sawyer: “If there’s nothing upstairs, try those computers beside the scanning probe. Dutchess wiped just about everything but a good hacker should be able to reconstruct deleted files from the hard drive. You’ll have at least preliminary designs on the archos components.”

  There was motion behind Ruth, as Todd or maybe Hernandez stepped toward those PCs. She kept her attention focused on Sawyer, wondering at the change in him.

  He continued to speak and Cam echoed him: “If you have full data, use model R-1077 as your base. R-1077. There’s no fuse and its mass is under one billion AMU. Less than a quarter of that is programmable space but it should hold the rep algorithm and your discrim key.”

  You. Your. He was putting everything in their hands. He must have felt that he was losing the war against himself. His unusual strength of will, his rage, his private terror—these were all useless against the wet touch of spittle at the corner of his mouth, the clumsy meat that had been his arms and legs.

  He might hang on another five years but in the truest sense he was dying, and he knew it, and in this lucid moment he wanted most of all to escape his own bitterness.

  Ruth managed another smile, more genuine this time, and Sawyer’s intense gaze flickered from her eyes to the sad quirk of her mouth. He nodded—and then the lab came to life around them in a cacophony of beeps and buzzing. Many pieces of equipment had still been on when the electricity went out, and the overhead fluorescents winked and then smothered them in furious white.

  The distractions broke the wordless communion between Ruth and Sawyer. He glanced away and Ruth saw his expression loosen, tense as he fought to hold on to his thoughts, then ease again as he was overwhelmed by new stimuli.

  Already his concentration was fading.

  D.J. returned downstairs with a small zippered packet of CD-RW discs and a smaller, flat metal case like a gentleman’s cigarette holder. He made quite a show of his finds, proudly holding them out. The Special Forces unit had also returned to the main lab and D.J. created an eddy through the gathered suits as their curiosity led most of them after him for a few steps.

  Ruth forgave his self-important grin.

  Lined with form-fitted sponge, the case held sixteen vacuum wafers no bigger or thicker than a fingernail. A container intended to be manipulated by human hands was of astronomical proportions for a batch of nanos, even compartmentalized, but the microscopic structures within would be fastened to a carbon surface for easier location under the microscope.

  This was not archos. Freedman would never have brought complete, programmed nanos outside the hermetic chamber. But the sectional components would help them to intuit the full potential of this technology later on—and the base prototypes might serve as their vaccine nano with only minor adaptations.

  The discs offered more magic. Sawyer perked up again when D.J. showed him the CD packet, which was lurid pink and sported the too-cute, doe-eyed face of a PowerPuff Girl. Somehow, fleetingly, that made Freedman real to Ruth as an individual for the first time, a woman who’d spent a few extra bucks on a vibrant case instead of buying a plain one.

  “Series twelve,” Cam said, still diligently translating. “The series twelve discs are the replication program.”

  Someone caught Ruth’s arm and she looked up. Beyond the few suits clustered around Sawyer, the rest of the group were now getting ready to haul equipment outside, pushing chairs back into the far corner, unplugging computers and disconnecting keyboards.

  The man who’d grabbed her elbow was Captain Young.

  “You have it?” he asked, his voice muffled. The Special Forces team leader had shut off his radio. He thrust his face close and Ruth leaned away, startled, but Young pulled on her again and pressed his helmet to hers. Conduction improved the transfer of sound waves.

  He spoke more precisely. “Do you have what we came for?”

  She hesitated. She nodded.

  Young bobbed his head in response and then turned, releasing her arm, reaching for the radio control on his belt. His voice filled the general frequency. “Green green green,” he said, and unslung his rifle from his shoulder.

  27

  Cam glanced away from D.J. and Sawyer at the strange announcement, “Green green,” an
d saw at least half of the men raise their left arms in what appeared to be a choreographed movement, their gloves balled into fists. It was a gesture of identification. Then they stepped toward the other soldiers with their sidearms drawn.

  “What—!” he shouted, but the radio filled with chatter.

  “Freeze fucking freeze right there crazy what are you freeze hey Trotter hold it don’t move!”

  The coordinated action took just seconds. There must have been a prior signal he’d missed. Each of the attackers stood close to one of the others, and none of the attackers had anything in hand, whereas most of the rest were encumbered with a computer monitor, an armload of cords, a stack of electronics.

  Each attacker put his Glock 9mm in his opponent’s face and grabbed at the man’s waist, seizing not the man’s holstered pistol but his radio control. Their wiring ran safely inside their suits except for a short length that extended from every left hip to every control box, which allowed their headsets to be unplugged and jacked directly into another communication system like that of a plane. Now the attackers silenced the other men.

  Something shut off in Cam as well. Confusion, dismay, anger—the shock wave through his head left him empty and clear, tuned entirely outward. He absorbed details into his body like oxygen. It was the fluid, immediate thinking of an animal, disassociated from logic or emotion.

  It decided him. He ducked sideways like a blitzing cornerback angling for position.

  During the past hours Cam had become able to distinguish among his companions in spite of the suits—some of them, at least; Dansfield because of his height; Olson with grime on his sleeve; Hernandez because of his clipped stride and his tendency to be the group’s focal point. Instinct said that it was the Special Forces who were taking over and Hernandez who was in trouble. Given time, Cam might have reached the same conclusion with a quick count. The crush of beige suits was five on five and two more attackers hung back with assault rifles, wicked black metal in their suit-thick arms. But he had forgotten numbers. And he knew that they had forgotten him.

  The nearest rifleman stood three paces from Ruth, his M16 pointed at the ceiling. Captain Young. His helmet shifted as he reiterated his code, “Green two green tw—”

  Cam hit him in the ribs, shoulder to body, and like a cornerback striking a ball carrier he chopped down at the captain’s arms.

  “No!” The only female voice.

  Then another rise of male shouts: “What did shit look out!”

  The M16 rattled, four shots into floor. Spent casings leapt against Cam’s chest as he and Young tumbled together, their momentum increased by the weight of their air tanks.

  Another, heavier gunshot reverberated through the enclosed space of the lab. Then they hit the tile, Young underneath him. But the air pack kept Young from falling flat. Its bulk punched his body up as Cam slammed down on top of him, and Young didn’t fight when Cam tore away the M16.

  Slipping, crawling, Cam stabilized himself on his left hand and his knees and brought the weapon level. He couldn’t have fired. His fingers were splayed over the flat base of the trigger guard between the rifle’s grip and the magazine.

  Details— His finger pad on smooth metal, moving for the trigger— The suits across from him now four on five instead of neatly paired— Hernandez and the Marines had used his surprise move to counterattack. One man lay crumpled on the floor. Another guy had been knocked onto his butt. But where was the second rifleman—?

  Then a boot punted into the right side of Cam’s faceplate. Impact drove his jaws together and twisted his neck and he dropped the M16, thrown all the way around onto his back. The air tanks bit into his shoulder blades but his pain centered around the unnatural bulge beneath his lip. His dying teeth had wrenched forward from his gums, two lumps, enormous and wrong. They seesawed loosely on their broken roots as he coughed blood against his faceplate.

  The rifleman stood over him, M16 pointed into Cam’s body.

  “No no he doesn’t know!” Ruth had been just a step or two from the Special Forces soldier but she ran anyway and continued that frantic motion once she’d reached his side, waving her only arm like a wing, elbow out, still clutching her laptop.

  She was impossibly brave, confronting the soldier. But her words were strange. “He didn’t know, he didn’t— We need him!”

  The rifleman held his pose. Cam also remained motionless, sprawled cockeyed on his tanks, although his hands curled with the need to come to his face and a different fear crashed through his chest and arms. My suit Christ what if my suit is ripped?

  The rest of the room seemed quiet too. Cam swallowed blood. Beyond his feet were Todd and Sawyer, Todd hunched toward the wheelchair in a manner that looked protective and

  D.J. retreated several paces past the near corner of the hermetic chamber, sidling away from everyone.

  Her words didn’t make sense.

  “Stop, he didn’t know,” Ruth babbled, and there was a shuf

  fling motion on Cam’s other side as Captain Young groped up from the floor, panting audibly in short, choked breaths.

  “She’s right,” Young gasped. “We need him.”

  A new voice cut in. “Green green, what’s happening—”

  “Green two, green two, we’re okay,” Young said. Who was he reassuring, another group of soldiers? Could they have flown in another plane? No, the pilots waiting across town on the freeway had radar and would have warned Hernandez— The pilots—

  Right. The pilots were in on the deal and must have shut off the radio relay to Colorado at the first code from Young.

  There could only be one thing they wanted, one reason to take over. The nanotech. But what was the point of stealing it? What could they ask for, not money—

  Bitch. The sneaking bitch.

  Ruth had been using him all this time; she’d even smiled and held his hand and meanwhile she’d known—

  Cam arched his head back, a grating spike in his vertebrae. Through speckles of blood, he saw how the struggle had been lost.

  The suit crucified limply over its pack was Marine Corporal Ruggiero. He carried a map case on his belt, which is how Cam knew him because the Plexiglas over his face opaqued by fracture lines and a veil of gore. When Cam tackled Young, when the assault rifle discharged, the Special Forces soldier guarding Ruggiero had flinched. Point-blank, the 9mm round exploded Ruggiero’s skull inside his helmet.

  The fight was not completely one-sided. The person Cam had glimpsed on his butt, now upright and rubbing his neck, was a Special Forces soldier named Trotter—but with guns already drawn, the Special Forces had rapidly taken control again.

  Except that now a man was dead.

  The beige suits were in nearly the same positions as ten seconds ago, five on four, but their postures had changed. They leaned away from Ruggiero’s body and Cam felt the same tilting horror. One murder in this tomb of millions, and it changed everything.

  “Oh shit,” Olson said. Among them he was alone, unmatched by a Marine prisoner. He held his pistol low beside his hip as if hiding it. “Oh shit I wasn’t— I just—”

  Lacking a radio, Hernandez yelled to make himself heard. “What are you doing, Young, going over to the breakaways?”

  “We never planned to hurt your guys,” Young said.

  “I never figured you for a traitor.”

  “Swear to God. We didn’t want anyone hurt.”

  Ruth interjected like always. “You don’t understand.” Her pale face shifted away, searching for Hernandez, then quickly returned to Cam. “We had to do this. We’re the only chance there is for people to get the vaccine everywhere.”

  Hernandez ignored her. “You’ve got the pilots?”

  “I’m sorry, Major,” Young said. “I swear. Don’t give us any more trouble and your guys will be fine.”

  It was too much for Cam to separate, the new emotions in his head—alarm and doubt and old, old guilt. In the space of a heartbeat he’d gone
from empty to overfull. What the hell could she mean, only chance?

  “You won’t make it.” Matter-of-fact, Hernandez sounded like he was the one holding a gun. “All of you better think. Where are you going to go? Anyplace you try for, we’ll have fighters on you. Anyplace you land we’ll bring in troops.”

  Young turned from him. “Tape them up, hands to feet.”

  “You can’t win.”

  “Olson, did you hear me?”

  “Y- yes, sir. I got it.” Still contemplating Ruggiero’s body, Master Sergeant Olson stuck his left arm up as if beginning the attack all over again. “We’re on six.”

  Olson took charge of the men with the prisoners, switching off the general frequency. They began to disarm the Marines one at a time, unbuckling their prisoner’s gun belts altogether rather than only taking their sidearms.

  “Watch them,” Young said, and the rifleman swung his M16 away from Cam’s belly at last and went to reinforce Olson.

  Ruth knelt instantly, off-balance. “I wanted to tell you—”

  “What a fuck-up.” Young might have been cursing himself. He didn’t look down at Cam until the words were out.

  “Leadville was going to keep it for themselves,” Ruth said, but Cam stared at Young instead, unable to look at her. One more murder, and for the wrong reasons. For nothing.

  His tongue dug at the hole in his gums, fleshy tendrils, embedded rocks of enamel. Already the cloying soup of his own blood was making him nauseous.

  He coughed. “Why would they...”

  Young also knelt, so that there was one of them on either side of Cam. He’d drawn his pistol and hefted it now, a silent display, before reaching across Cam’s belt with his other hand.

  Ruth said, “What are you doing?” Then her voice was only a mumble. “Let me explain!”

  Young had disconnected him, and said, “I can’t have him on the radio.”

  “Then how is he supposed to help us with Sawyer? He didn’t know. Let me explain. We have to be able to talk. They’re essential to building—”

  “Whoa. We’re not sticking around here. Are you serious? I thought you were just delaying to give us more time.”