Judgment Plague
Page 26
“Did it,” Grant said, his tone laced with disbelief. “Blew up that sucker good.”
Congratulations came immediately over his commtact, and at the same moment, Shizuka leaned forward and stroked his shoulder. “Well done, Grant-san,” she said. “Now let’s go home.”
He nodded in agreement. “I could sleep for a week,” he admitted.
The Manta streaked past the cloud of metal before rising and turning away, heading back toward the Cerberus redoubt many miles to the north and west. The threat was over.
Chapter 36
The Cerberus warriors disappeared into the shadows after that, making their way back to the redoubt via various means, keeping clear of the authorities and avoiding too many difficult questions.
Cobaltville would recover. Colin Phillips, under instruction from Brigid—who passed it on from Reba DeFore—led the treatment of those who had been infected by DePaul’s final judgment virus. It was deadly, yes, but only if it went untreated. With medical know-how, radiation therapy and a staunch supply of antibiotics, the plague could be held at its early stages, so long as the doctors moved quickly enough. Phillips made sure that they did. In all, sixteen people died from contracting the virus, and another two dozen—mostly magistrates—had been killed during DePaul’s brief reign of terror. It could have been so much worse.
Kane was glad to get away from Cobaltville. He had been born there and had lived there for the first thirty-two years of his life, but the place felt like a trap now, a prison. Working with Cerberus had taught him a lot, but he realized now that the most important lessons were the ones he had happened upon by himself. Maybe it was true what they said—that you could never go home again.
Brigid had returned to the interphaser and jumped home without waiting for Kane, taking the jump-board with her. Kane had assured her over the commtact that he would make his own way there, and would call for a lift when he needed one. Two days passed before he made the call, and when he did it was Edwards who came to pick him up in a Deathbird helicopter.
Grant had returned to base straightaway, where he was treated to more radiation therapy and a course of antibiotics to clear all infection from his system, and confined to bed for the rest of the month under strict doctor’s orders. The orders were not anywhere near as strict as Shizuka’s, who told him in no uncertain terms that stopping a potential plague outbreak was only once a valid excuse for endangering your own life.
“Next time I’ll come up with something better,” Grant promised her, and he was rewarded with a reluctant smile.
Thus, it wasn’t until seventy-two hours later that all of CAT Alpha were back at Cerberus to compare notes. They met in Grant’s recovery room, where the big man was lying in bed reading a book of ancient Japanese philosophy.
“Hey there, hero,” Kane cheered as he entered the room. “How’s life, lying on your back doing nothing?”
Grant looked up from the book of philosophical musings and smiled. “To be honest, I’ve reread this page eight times over and it’s still not going in. Shizuka laps this stuff up, though, so I think it must be me.”
Kane looked over his shoulder before striding over to the bed. “I’m guessing from that comment that Shizuka isn’t around, then?”
“Ah, your point-man sense never fails, does it?” Grant teased. “And no, she had business at New Edo. She’ll be back before they let me out of bed. If they ever do.”
Brigid joined the two of them a few minutes later, a sheaf of notes clutched under her arm and her square-framed archivist glasses perched on her nose. “Kane, I heard you were back,” she said. “Thought I might find you here.”
“Gotta check you’ve all been treating my partner right in my absence, don’t I?” Kane teased by way of acknowledgment.
Brigid made a show of smelling the air around Kane and pulling a face. “You need to wash,” she said, “or you’ll set his recovery back two weeks.”
“Hey, he’s only been laid up three days!” Kane objected.
“Exactly,” Brigid retorted with a brief but genuine smile.
“So, what do we have on the plague man?” Kane asked.
“A case isn’t over until you have the name, is it?” Brigid said. “Well, I have bad news—we don’t know who he was, only that he was probably a magistrate, like you said.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it. I think he was probably suffering from mysophobia,” she stated.
“Myso-what-now?” Kane and Grant asked in unison.
“Mysophobia,” Brigid said. “He was germaphobe. That explains the suit and protective mask.”
“And I thought he was just a nut,” Kane opined.
“Well,” Brigid said, rolling her eyes. “I think his mysophobia became psychologically muddled with his magistrate training, so that his obsession with crime became twisted with his fear of infection. So he wasn’t stopping crime,” she told Kane. “He was cleansing the world of a disease called crime. Subtle difference, but an important one.”
Kane shrugged. “You say potato,” he said in a singsong voice.
Grant interjected before the two of them could continue to bait each other. “So what did you guys get up to while I was stuck here?” he asked.
“We cleaned up,” Kane said.
Brigid shot him a wicked look.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460342114
Judgment Plague
Copyright © 2014 by Worldwide Library
Special thanks to Rik Hoskin for his contribution to this work.
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