The Demon Plagues

by David VanDyke

  “Next time I see him, I will.”

  ***

  Larry Nightingale studied the nanomachines they had culled from the Geneva samples on his microscope display screen. Although he presumed they could be programmed to do different things, these in particular had only one goal: attack the Eden Plague.

  At this scale, it looked like multi-armed construction machinery killing rats at high speed. Though far too small to see with the naked eye, the nanobots were dozens of times as large as the viruses they hunted. They snatched the floating phages and chopped them up, leaving bits of proteins floating away.

  The Eden phages were individually helpless; their only weapon was sheer numbers. For every nanite there were a million viruses, and whenever the bloodstream density of a Plague carrier dropped too low, the Eden virus would borrow a few thousand body cells and turn them into factories, spewing millions of copies of itself into the host.

  If that was all there was to it, Larry wouldn’t have cared. The nanites would eventually break down, since they did not self-replicate. Perhaps some future version would, but these eventually broke, like any machine. Before then, the patient’s own Eden Plague-powered immune system overreacted with antibodies to overwhelm the invaders, overproduced histamines, and cause massive inflammations. Confused, the Plague carrier’s body attacked itself. About half the time the result was complete collapse and death.

  His results paralleled the Demon Plague studies. The bottom line was that the Eden Plague and its human carrier could easily handle any Earthly disease that had evolved or adapted in a terrestrial environment. Against these alien invaders, whether biological or mechanical, the Eden Plague was like a powerful security force that went berserk, murdering its own citizens.

  Just like politics.

  Larry was playing catch-up with nanoengineering; it was not his chosen field. But the specialists on his team were just as frustrated as he was. They were barely knowledgeable enough to study the few nanites the Chairman’s security team had recovered, much less figure out a way to do anything to them. Never mind creating some themselves.

  Oh, they could turn them on and off with a coded magnetic field; that was a short-term cure for nanite exposure. But reprogramming them or changing their physical structure was simply too far beyond his team’s ability. He had a handful of skilled people; the Americans reportedly had hundreds, maybe thousands, and a laboratory complex the size of a town. Their effort was advanced beyond the Free Communities’ ability to replicate. Larry simply couldn’t catch up in time.

  He sat back, rubbing his temples. He had to finish their report, the one that codified and recorded their failure. At least Elise’s biogenetic team was big, and competent, world-class. The new buildings going up outside and the warehouses full of supplies were a testimony to the resources being thrown at the problem.

  He stood up, turning off the nanites with the tap of a button. Walking down the corridors, he marshaled his arguments, hoping to convince Elise and Shawna – and Daniel Markis, if necessary. He could see only one hope for Edens against the Demon Plague.

  He waved at the outer office and rapped on Elise’s door. Inside he saw Ravi Tinker, standing as if getting ready to leave. Struck by a minor inspiration, Larry waved to the small Indian. “Ravi, glad I caught you here. Elise, can we talk for minute?”

  “Sure, come in and shut the door.”

  Larry carefully dropped his two hundred sixty pounds into a creaky chair. “I’ll have the report to you by tomorrow, but I wanted to tell you myself. We can’t do anything with the nanites in time. I think we can turn them off if someone uses them against us, as long as we have some time to find the specific shutdown code. But the technology is too far ahead of anyone here.”

  “As we expected.” Elise sighed. “What else?”

  “Yeah…Ravi, I hear you want to get in touch with the Americans. See if the nanites can be customized to fight the Demon Plague inside Eden carriers.”

  Ravi’s jaw dropped. “How did you know that?”

  Larry laughed, rueful. “Nothing is secret at a busy lab. People talk. It doesn’t matter; I just came by to tell Elise that I agree. I have no evidence to back it up but after weeks of watching these little boogers, my educated guess is that if we had some properly-programmed nanites, they could whack the Demon Plague before it caused the usual overreaction. Kind of a mercenary force to keep the Eden Plague army from mobilizing.”

  “See? You see, Elise, he agrees with me.”

  “Yes, Ravi, I see that. All right, I’ll brief Shawna and get it passed up to Daniel. Obviously it will be a political decision. Working with the Americans will be difficult. There’s a lot of bad blood. They still regard us as traitors.”

  A shadow of pain passed over Larry’s face. “We’re Americans too, Elise. We can’t forget that.”

  “Yes, but the America we knew is gone. We’ll have to see if it can remake itself into something worthy of our allegiance. After the Nazis it took Germany decades, and a lot of help, to become a great country again.”

  “Yes, Elise, but now we have a lot more time. We’re all going to live to be a thousand.”

  “If we live till next year, that is. All right, you two, get back to work. I’ll argue your case.”

  -33-

  Christine Forman stared at the back of her new, young hand.

  The hands are the first thing to go. Other than the boobs. And the butt, and the neck…just face it, Christine, this Eden Plague is the best thing to happen to women since the tummy tuck. I’m so glad I finally was able to get infected.

  She shook off the wonder, walking down the hall of the family bungalow in the Catskills. The irony was not lost on her; this cottage, as they sometimes called it, had eight bedrooms for family or guests, not counting servant’s quarters.

  Christine went by the kitchen for tea then back to her room. The internet was spotty but liberal doses of cash had gotten them reconnected to a server in Albany, thankfully undamaged on the Day of Death. She clicked back on the feed from the alien spaceship, fascinated by the strange amoeba-like creature, something under a microscope grown to human size.

  A knock came at the open door. “The post, ma’am.” A letter lay on a silver tray in the butler’s gloved hands.

  She waved him in and took it. “Thank you, Wilkins. You’re looking well.”

  He smiled. “As are you, Miss. I just had my injection yesterday. Already I feel ten years younger.”

  “Good for you! Aren’t you afraid of the alien plague?”

  “I’m almost eighty now. I’ll take the risk. I wanted to before but…”

  “Yes, the Unionists.”

  “What about you, ma’am?”

  “I got it before the Demon Plague showed up. I guess I’ll just have to be careful.”

  “Please do, ma’am.” Wilkins withdrew, smiling.

  ‘Department of the Navy’, the envelope read. She raised an eyebrow, reaching for the seldom-used letter-opener on her desk. Not that much real hardcopy mail came these days, certainly nothing for her, a just-released political prisoner.

  Activation orders. And promoted to full Commander. Dear Lord, is this a joke? God, You sure have a sense of humor. Well, I did ask for something worthwhile to do, and I guess this is the answer. Be careful what you pray for, eh?

  The official papers told her to report to General Travis Tyler, US Army, at Butts Army Airfield, Ft. Carson, Colorado. She looked it up on her computer. Looks like it’s closer to Colorado Springs…but that took a nuclear strike. Who knows, I guess I’ll find out when I get there.

  She threw down the packet and thought for a moment, then picked it back up, exiting her room into the wood paneled hall. The scent of pine oil and wood smoke reminded her of her childhood visits here.

  Turning left past the library, she opened the door to the smoking room where her aunt Adelia Jenkins sat, staring out the window at the rain. Ashes from her forgotten cigarette fell like snowflakes beneath her hanging hand.
<
br />   “Better watch it, Auntie, or you’ll burn your fingers.” Christine took the smoke from the old woman, unresisted.

  Adelia’s watery eyes turned to Christine’s as she sat down on the sofa beside her. She blinked, focusing, then reached for the glasses on the chain around her neck to peer nearsightedly at her niece. “You look very well, Chrissie, on the outside. How do you feel on the inside?”

  “Better now that I’m not being interrogated every blessed day. Just because the prison wasn’t a concentration camp doesn’t mean it wasn’t my own kind of hell. Thanks for getting me out; when are you going to accept the Plague?”

  The old woman waved a vague hand. “Just like that? Soon enough; I still have some hard decisions to make. I don’t want my mind clouded.”

  Christine disagreed, “Your mind will be clearer, not clouded. I worked with infected people, I got them out of the country, I know the real story, not that propaganda they were feeding you.”

  “But there’s no one else to run the company. The whole Jenkins family, wiped out by those goddamned Australian missiles.”

  Christine didn’t bother to debate the origin of the missiles. She put her hand on her aunt’s. “I’m still your niece. And as soon as you take the Plague, you will be young and immortal and, dare I say it, fertile. If you feel that the family name is important, that is. Either way, the Plague will give you time.”

  “What about you?” Adelia’s tone jabbed at her niece, surly. “Why don’t you get a husband and pop out a few?”

  “I’m sure I will, when I find the right man. I have time too. The Unionists are out of power and the donkeys and elephants are too shellshocked to bicker much. By the time things start fracturing again, the Eden Plague will be a fact of life for all North Americans. With your money and power, you can make sure that happens. The sooner you start, the better. Just like the evil queen said, one little prick and it will all be over.”

  Adelia pulled her hand out from under Christine’s “That’s supposed to be reassuring?”

  Christine sighed. “It was supposed to be funny, but I’ve never been that good at comedy. Just…just trust me, Adelia. Look at me. Last week I was forty-two. Today, I’m twenty-five in the body, but the same in my mind.”

  “Sure, you’re the same because you already were a goody-two shoes tomboy, going into the ministry and the Navy and so on. I’m a nasty old bitch and maybe I want to stay that way.”

  Christine stood up, placing her hands on her hips. “You’re afraid. You lived through the last ten years of these fearmongers and you saw what terror does to a society and you are still afraid. It’s easier to stay afraid and defend what you have than be brave and take a leap of faith.”

  The old woman licked her lips. “I’m not ready.”

  “Well, you’ll have to be soon.” She waved the papers in her hand. “I just got reactivated and promoted. I’m back in the Navy. If that isn’t proof things have changed, I don’t know what is. But I have to report in a week, so you’ll have to decide soon.” She turned to go.

  “Wait, Chrissie, don’t leave me.”

  Christine spoke over her shoulder. “I’m not leaving you yet, auntie. I’m just leaving you alone. I have too much to do to sit here while you wallow in self-pity. There are people out there who lost everything, living in refugee camps. Poor little rich girl. Snap out of it.” She walked out, feeling her aunt’s eyes burning holes in her back.

  Lord, give me strength and guidance. I hope tough love was the right thing. She needs to start living and working again. This country needs industrialists like her – like she used to be, before she got scared – to rebuild.

  Back in her room, she logged on to a secure, hidden corner of the internet and wrote a quick update to her usual report. Though she had been caught – by old-fashioned physical police work – her network, her underground railroad smuggling Edens out of the UGNA had never been dismantled. And someone in that network, deliberately unknown to her, was connected to the loose organizations of resistance in the USA, networks that had not disbanded just because the Unionists were out of power. Someone in the resistance was connected to the Free Communities, and would pass her report to the right people.

  Once she put the uniform back on, these reports would have to cease. She couldn’t serve two masters. Her final missive would explain. She was going back in, and maybe, just maybe, she could do more good inside than out.

  -34-

  Skull looked out over the Painted Desert of Arizona from the tiny window of the regional-airline turboprop. The brilliant reds and yellows blazed in the afternoon sunlight, a convincing lie of America the Beautiful. Skull knew better.

  Though he felt nothing for the men who had died at his hands, his steel-plated heart ached for his beloved land, brought to her knees by the impossible pounding of atomic destruction. That the fire had also scourged the evil that had seized power, had scraped the wounded people almost clean of the neofascists and their police state, was the only thing that gave him hope, for he was flying, business casual, to the center of what remained of power in the prostrate United States.

  Denny had given him a word, a whisper in the dark, before they had parted in Mexico City. The SS was pulling out of Mexico, but in an orderly fashion; any hint of running and the jackals would come out in force. Ironic that much of America’s remaining organized ground forces was occupying Mexico and Canada two weeks ago. Sorry, ‘advising and assisting’ them. He chuckled to himself.

  Pueblo. Might be a codeword, might be someone’s name, but Skull had done his rotation in Intelligence before the Corps had forced him to retire. He knew how to put the bits and pieces together.

  Pueblo, Colorado was just outside the zone of nuclear devastation; it was the best piece of infrastructure standing anywhere near NORAD’s headquarters at Cheyenne Mountain. Now it was the nation’s provisional capital, home of the United States Government.

  What was left of it.

  Pueblo was also within easy reach of a number of national laboratories and their offshoots and annexes. When Skull had asked about Tiny Fortress, the word that came back was ‘Pueblo.’

  “Please lock your tray tables and put your seats in their full upright positions.”

  After doing as the stewardess instructed, he closed his eyes. He didn’t much care for the sinking feeling as the airplane descended into Pueblo Memorial. He never liked flying, or jumping either. It wasn’t fear, exactly; just…unease.

  He felt better immediately upon stepping out on the bright hot oil-smelling tarmac of the runway, settling his sunglasses and striding for the terminal. SS troopers watched with bored expressions from their air-conditioned vehicles. The so-called Unionists were dead or discredited, but their bureaucratic structures lived on, the proverbial Hydra. He ignored them, a wolf among dogs.

  Skull found the Homeland Security office inside, a clean modern space full of the trappings of civilization, complete with hot and cold running suspicion. He stared back at the uniformed sergeant behind the desk until the man squirmed and gave up trying to intimidate him. Eventually Skull’s cold eyes wore him down.

  “Can I –"

  “Yes, Sergeant,” he snapped, preemptory. “You can get someone in authority.” Skull pulled out a leather folder, showing him his impeccably forged US Marshals Badging and Credentials, called ‘B’s and C’s’ by those that used them. “Right away please.” His tone denied that it was a request.

  The man rushed to comply. Less than a minute later Skull was being shown into a glass-fronted office with ‘Special Agent Carlos Adams, FBI’ freshly painted on it. A young, stocky but fit man looking fresh out of training, he crushed Skull’s hand in one meaty paw. “Glad to meet you, sir.”

  The ‘sir’ was purely for his age, Skull suspected, since a US Marshal was roughly equivalent to a Special Agent in any of the government agencies. Fine, I’ll push it as far as I can. “Likewise. Craig Demming, US Marshal. I need some information, if you could help me out. I’m out of the Sant
a Fe office but our computers are still screwed up, and I figured I’d just come on up and see if you are doing any better. I’m looking for a man named Raphe Durgan. Medical doctor, biologist. Might be a program manager at one of the labs around here.”

  “Sure, Craig, let me get one of my people on it right away.” Eager to show off his little empire, Special Agent Adams handed him two printouts within ten minutes. “You got his standard security cover there and his current assignment details. Applied Computer Technology Labs, subsidiary to Los Alamos. Well, it was.” He looked sheepish; Los Alamos National Nuclear Laboratory’s main campus had taken a direct hit.

  “Do you have his home address and phone number? Getting cleared into these labs, you know…pain in the ass. I’d rather just look him up after hours.”

  “Sure, sir, it’s on the second page there.” Eager as a puppy.

  “Outstanding. You’ve been a great help. This is all classified, so please don’t even talk about my visit with anyone not specifically authorized.” Skull stood up, put on his best ‘we’re all buddies’ smile, and shook hands manfully. Then he got the hell out of there before Murphy showed up.

  His credentials couldn’t stand even the most cursory electronic check; hopefully the widespread computer issues since the strikes would cover him for long enough. He rented a car with cash and a fake driver’s license and a generous bribe – or ‘tip’ – up front, another remnant of the police state that would take a while to root out.

  Unaccountable power corrupts everything it touches. More power, more corruption.

  Thirty minutes later he was parked in the cul-de-sac that held Durgan’s McMansion. Its rear deck looked out on the 18-hole golf course running through the high-end gated desert community, and its front yard was stunningly over-landscaped with desert plants and faux Southwestern Native American designs. Everything was orderly and ordinary in this heavily-controlled desert area.