S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11)

by Tanpepper, Saul

  She turned around to look at Cassie. There was fright in the girl’s pale face. She hugged Shinji tight to her, as if the dog would protect her, and wouldn’t look anywhere but at the back of Ramon’s seat. Does she sense the risk, too?

  “Honey,” she asked, “are you okay?”

  Oh god, what if Cassie loses control?

  Lyssa shuddered at the thought, at what she’d be forced to do if that were to happen.

  “Please don’t fight, Mama.”

  Lyssa tried to smile, but it felt awkward on her face, more like a grimace. “Okay, honey.” She put her clean hand on Ramon’s arm. He hesitated a moment, then turned and nodded at Cassie. His wink of reassurance looked much more convincing.

  They waited. Lyssa rested her hand on her lap. Moving it reminded her of the blood coating it. It itched and pinched her skin. As a scientist and physician, she knew the risks inherent in blood exposure— hepatitis, HIV, meningitis. In all likelihood, the biker wasn’t a carrier of anything like that. Most athletic people weren’t.

  And you can’t catch crazy.

  But the bloodied hand still felt like a separate part of her, that it would suddenly turn on her.

  An hour passed. Cassie and Shinji were getting restless. Ramon finally managed to get his door open. He tried to add water to the radiator, but the hood refused to open. “The engine should be cooled off enough by now,” he told them as he slipped back into the car. Lyssa could see the doubt on his face. He knew they weren’t going to get very far.

  Finally, exhaling in exasperation, Ramon started the engine, shifted, then began to back up the trail. The engine light immediately came back on and a warning chimed.

  The van was their only hope. But if they couldn’t get it started, then they were going to be in serious trouble.

  CHAPTER FIFTY TWO

  Today, the president addressed governors’ concerns about the highly controversial and secretive Omegaman Division operated by the United States Marine Corps, although he once again denied their requests for access to information. In his rebuttal, the president cited the threat to our nation’s security strategy that would be created if the reins on technology central to it were to be loosened. He further noted that a release of information could erode the advantage currently enjoyed by the nation’s military forces, and may jeopardize any future applications currently being developed or under consideration.

  In arguing their case, the governors, who are calling themselves the Southern States Coalition, claim that the Omegaman program should no longer enjoy protections under the Defense Weaponry Secrets Act as the technology has now been adopted for civil purposes, specifically the expansion of Stream and its replacing the Internet and cellular networks.

  ‘The transition to Stream,’ the president defended, ‘is vital for the continued survival of the Omegaman program. This alone confers special status under the DWS Act. Expansion of the base technology into civilian markets represents a forward-thinking evolution of our defense infrastructure. As to its administration, it is imperative that the technologies remain fully within the hands of the scientists and engineers who created them. Why? Because they understand them best, are keenly aware of their limitations and advantages, and are fully cognizant of the importance of safekeeping their secrets. I ask the American people for patience as we continue to evaluate the potential uses of these technologies in our lives, but I must also remind the public that our understanding of its potential is still very much in its infancy. We want to avoid problems which might arise if their implementation is not properly overseen.’

  Stream, which is intended to replace our current cellular and data transfer systems, claims to have several advantages over the existing Internet and mobile phone infrastructure, including greater security and control of linear data feed transmission, especially over hardware responsible for processing complex cybernetic data upon which the Omegaman technology relies.

  According to senior software architect Gustav Lim, who developed the first quaternary Application Programming Interface while an intern at the now-defunct search giant, Google, the new methods are several generations ahead of anything else ever conceived or developed. ‘Stream utilizes a dynamic interlacing codex for encryption, processing, and storage of data. It is completely unbreakable without the decryption key. Any release of the key raises the risk of breach.’

  Lim’s new interface enabled the Ames Research Consortium, or ARC International, to build what is being touted as ‘an extremely efficient and totally secure data transmission protocol.’

  Stated Padraig Harrison, a founder and senior strategist at ARC, ‘We are moving as aggressively as we can to develop beneficial applications for everyday use within the civilian sector. We want the public to know that we pledge to serve the people. For example, in addition to building a wholly new communication network, we are ready to formalize what had been an experimental behavioral normalization program, which we initiated a couple years ago with the launch of our LINC neural implant pilot program. We expect these to also be fully integrated with Stream once the system is expanded nationwide. We plan to mainstream neural implantation within the year and to avail the devices to every single individual for free under a proposed government subsidization bill currently making its way through Congress.’

  As for the persistent rumors that the neural-implanted Omegamen, initially used by the United States Marine Corps, are reanimated corpses, Harrison dismissed the idea out of hand. ‘Speculation is an inevitable, if illegitimate, offspring of secrecy. It’s human nature to wonder, to try and figure things out. We’re puzzle-solvers. Unfortunately, it is also human nature to popularize the most unrealistic ideas. At Ames, we have always been as open and forthright in our descriptions of the Omegamen as possible, while withholding only those details which might compromise national security if they were to be made public. It is true that the individuals employed as Omegamen have been medically altered, but only with a drug. The effects are fully reversible. The drug tempers the very same base impulses which drove these individuals to do the criminal acts which qualified them for the program in the first place. The neural implants, which are the activated versions of the latent devices which we have been safely inserting into normal, healthy individuals for the past two to three years, enable us to modulate the behavior of these participants in ways beneficial to society. They are not, as some people like to claim, zombies. To say anything of the kind would not only be dismissive of the good work we are enabling them to do, but it denigrates the hard work of all the engineers behind the scenes at iTech.’

  Regarding the behavioral normalization program you mentioned earlier, would you mind addressing the potential for abuse?

  ‘As I alluded, implants inserted into willing volunteers are kept in a state of latency, or quiescence. There are both hardware and software safeguards in place to ensure that no one ever improperly gains access to them. These controls were mandated by the federal government and iTech has met or exceeded every metric for compliance.’

  When asked if the problems currently being reported on Long Island are related to the Stream rollout, both the Ames Research Consortium and the president were emphatic that they weren’t. Said the president, ‘Our medical investigators are looking into any possible links with the animal outbreak, though mounting evidence suggests the two events are of a completely different nature. However, given our uncertainty and the fluidity of the circumstances there, we have chosen to restrict travel to and from the island as a precautionary measure. This is to minimize any risk of inadvertent spread if it turns out we are not dealing with some sort of mass hysteria event, which is what we now believe to be the case.

  Thank you. This is Katherine Hardesty, reporting live for FOX News from the White House.

  CHAPTER FIFTY THREE

  They found the keys in the van’s ignition, but the battery was dead.

  Ramon spent the next forty minutes struggling to get the hood of the Audi open so he could jumpstart the van.
Lyssa climbed onto the van’s roof to warn him in case anyone or anything was in the thick brush surrounding the clearing.

  Cassie remained in the car with Shinji. She refused to eat or drink anything and complained of being bored. She wanted to get out, but Lyssa made her promise to stay inside. “It’s too dangerous out there.” She left the girl with a package of cookies and some bruised bananas. When she checked later, all but the peels and wrappers had been eaten.

  She held onto the van’s transmission antenna, unworried since there was no power to transmit the Stream poison. She turned in a steady circle and scanned the clearing’s perimeter. Besides the bike trail, there was a gravel road, whose view the van had blocked from the trail.

  Her arms itched terribly from the scrapes she’d obtained that morning beneath the bridge. She tried not to scratch them. She didn’t like the way the blood flaked off her skin, and yet when Ramon had offered to wash it off with their last bottle of water, she’d refused. “Save it for Cassie to drink.”

  Ramon levered the tire iron from the van’s tool box further along the edge of the Audi’s hood and pushed down with a grunt. He’d been trying for the past twenty minutes, working at the panel like it was the lid on the last can of chili in existence. The tire iron slipped and flew past his head with a loud ping. It landed several feet away.

  “Goddamn it!” he cried, then dropped to his knees beside the car. The back of his shirt was filthy with dirt from the bike path and dark with sweat.

  Lyssa checked around her once more before offering to switch places.

  “No, stay there.” He raised his hand to stop her. “I’ll be fine. Just give me a sec.”

  “You should stop and take a break, put something in your stomach.”

  Like Cassie, he refused to eat or drink anything.

  “You need to keep your strength up.”

  He threw her a resentful look before he went over and picked up the tire iron. She watched as he bounced it in his good hand. He looked like he wanted to fling it away. But he walked back to the Audi and began to pry at the hood once again.

  A few minutes later, his efforts were finally rewarded. He dropped the iron and reached beneath the edge and strained to lever the hood open. The sound it made was alarmingly loud.

  “You should keep the crowbar with you,” she called down.

  He struggled mightily with the last few inches, his muscles straining. He put his shoulder against the edge of the hood and cried out as he pushed upward. Finally satisfied, he wedged the tire iron in the opening.

  It only took a few minutes to hook up the jumper cables and get the van started. After they transferred their dwindling supplies, he moved Cassie and the dog, then gestured for Lyssa to climb down.

  “There’s blood splattered on the dashboard,” he quietly told her. “I wiped most of it away, but there’s some on the seat, too. Driver’s side isn’t as bad. You could sit in back with Cass on the floor. But there’s no seats and there’s not much room.”

  She noticed he didn’t offer to let her drive.

  “What’s back there?” she asked.

  “Equipment,” he replied. “Computers, monitors. Tools. I removed everything that wasn’t bolted down, but it’s still pretty cramped back there. In fact, Shinji could sit up front so you can stay back there with Cass. He won’t mind the blood.”

  But he apparently did. Shinji jumped easily into the driver’s seat, but when Ramon tried to push him over, he resisted with a low growl.

  “He wants to drive,” Cassie said, speaking up for the first time in over an hour.

  Lyssa gave her a wan smile and nodded. “He’ll have to fight Daddy first.”

  * * *

  They reached the end of the gravel road a couple minutes later and proceeded to Route 112. As expected, the interchange was blocked. Nevertheless, Ramon pulled up behind the line of cars. A soldier standing to one side pointed to the shoulder and gestured for them to pull forward.

  Someone honked and shouted, “Hey! We’ve been waiting here for the past hour! Why does he get to go?”

  “Official vehicles only, sir,” the soldier replied.

  “Get down,” Ramon told Lyssa and Cassie. “Keep out of sight. They think we’re with iTech.”

  He turned onto the shoulder and pulled forward.

  “You headed over to the new command site, sir?” the soldier asked.

  “Excuse me?” Ramon replied.

  “Jayne’s Hill. That’s where they’re setting up the new iTech command center. They said they were waiting on another portable transmitter to boost the signal. That’s you, I’m assuming. Someone torched the antenna there.”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. It’s been a long day already.”

  “Tell me about it. Where’s the rest of your team?”

  “Went ahead. I got held up and my radio died. What’s going on?”

  “All hell broke loose last night.” He snapped his fingers, and Ramon’s thoughts immediately went to Lyssa’s analogy of a switch being flipped. “Containment’s still iffy in Holbrook, so I advise you to skip 495 altogether. Just keep going south through Medford until you hit 27. Then hook north on Town Line Road in Islip. I know it’s out of your way, but—”

  “Might be quicker to get on 25,” Ramon countered.

  “It’s a shithole right now. We got a couple squads doing mop up from Farmingville to Smithtown. You don’t want to be anywhere near there right now.” A pause, then, “Um, sir, you know about the animal restriction, right? No dogs, sir.”

  “Shinji? He keeps watch for me.”

  “I understand, sir. Those infected things scare the crap out of me, too. But you know I can’t let you pass with him. The health department—”

  “I’m sure you can make an exception, Private . . . .”

  “Hildebrandt, sir.”

  There was another pause, this one longer, and Lyssa was sure the soldier had finally figured out that Ramon wasn’t who he thought he was. “Okay, sir. But I didn’t see him. And, sir, I’d advise he stay out of sight in the back. The closer you get to ground zero, the less understanding the other guards are going to be.”

  “Good to know. Thank you Private Hildebrandt. I’ll make sure to let my superiors know you’re doing a great job.”

  “Appreciated, sir. Remember: South through Medford, then west on 27, then north on Town Line. That should get you around the mess. And when you’re in town, keep your windows and doors shut. They cleared Medford, but we’re still getting a few reports of attacks. You’ll see a lot of military presence. Anyone tries to get to you, make sure they can speak, answer your questions first.”

  “Got it.” Ramon began to roll his window up.

  “And one last thing, sir. Drop your tower.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your transmission tower. It’s still extended.”

  “Ah, right. Thanks. With everything happening so suddenly, I almost forgot.”

  “Between you and me, sir? They should just tell everyone the truth.” The soldier laughed uncertainly when Ramon didn’t respond. “But I totally understand why they’re not,” Hildebrandt quickly added.

  He slapped the side of the van, making Lyssa jump, and whistled shrilly toward another soldier standing by a lift gate further up the road.

  “You’re good to go. Don’t get bit.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

  “They’re lying to us,” Ramon said. He somehow managed to sound surprised.

  After collapsing the transmission tower, he’d found the switch for the bubble light on the roof and turned it on. He hoped it wasn’t overkill. They all knew how lucky they’d been to fool the young guard. They didn’t want to think about what might happen to them if they were caught.

  As they approached the overpass for the Long Island Expressway, Lyssa could see the barricade that had been erected. The highway was closed, just as the soldier had indicated. Nobody was getting on.

  Ramon slowed as they entered Medford. They pulled up to another l
ine of idling cars and, as before, they were waved forward. The police officer pulled aside the barrier and waited for them to pass through before replacing it. Ramon weaved his way carefully through, muttering a warning for Lyssa to keep their heads down. But the officer didn’t even look at him, just pointed to where they were supposed to go.

  The right-of-way forced them onto a sidewalk, over a curb, then diagonally across a parking lot at a four-way intersection. Most of the businesses in the plaza were shuttered, their insides darkened. A group of soldiers was gathered outside of a deli. They pressed tightly against each other, as if eager to get inside.

  “The sandwiches at this place are pretty good,” Ramon muttered, “but not that good.”

  “Don’t talk about food right now.”

  “If you’re hungry, the box is back there.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Lyssa snapped. Her stomach was cramping up something terrible, and she was feeling dizzy. Sitting in the dark on the floor inside a hot van wasn’t helping.

  “Mama’s sick. We’re all sick.”

  “Just a little nausea, Cassie honey. I’ll be fine.”

  The timbre of the soldiers’ voices outside changed suddenly.

  “What’s going on, Rame?” She hated not being able to see everything.

  “I don’t know.” He leaned forward and tried to look through the passenger side window. “I can’t see much.”

  “Can you give us a little air back here? We’re burning up.”

  But he didn’t. He was staring at the crowd, and his face had gone pale.

  “Rame?”

  Shinji started to bark, snapping him out of his trance. He reached over and grabbed the dog’s scruff and pushed him down into the footwell. “Knock it off!” he hissed. “Shinji! Stop it!” But the puppy was having none of it. He turned his head and tried to nip at Ramon. He was frantic.

  The shouting outside grew louder. The soldiers sounded angry.