The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  “Something went wrong,” Sally2 said.

  “We overstepped our bounds?”

  “Exactly,” Sally2 said. “It’s time to give other species a chance.”

  “But that’s not what you really want.” Zora waved her Las-pistol, noting that Sally2’s eyes were tracking it. She was maybe eight feet away. Behind her and off to the side, the black hole of the tunnel gaped. Were they sending someone in from that direction to take Sally2 out? “You want to live. You want to rule over a new Earth.”

  “No.” Sally2 pushed her Las-pistol closer to Zora. “You’re wrong.”

  “You want to survive. Otherwise you would have smashed that canister already.”

  “You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” Sally2 said. Her arms twitched slightly. “Inching closer, stalling, waiting for help? You think any of that matters?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You’re a stupid child. These people are not your friends. They’re using you to get their way. All they care about is winning, no matter who has to lose.”

  “And you don’t?” Zora said.

  Major Somers said, “Okay, we’re just around the corner. Timothy put a curved barrel on his Las-rifle and it’s trained on her right now. If you can get the canister, Timothy can take her down.”

  “Don’t shoot yet,” Lendra said. “If that canister breaks, we won’t be able to stop the virus. Zora, get the canister.”

  Right. Good plan. I never would have thought of that.

  “I admit that I’m flawed,” Sally2 said. “But I don’t have to worry about that much longer. Neither do you. You’re going to be infected. They don’t care about you. That’s why they’re leaving you here alone. Probably hiding around the corner, ready to run when the canister explodes. Right? You’ll die and they’ll just find some other cog for their machine. Only this time, it won’t save them.” She raised her voice. “You may as well come out, Ned. I know you’re there.”

  Zora heard a soft scraping behind her.

  “Ah,” Sally2 said as she looked past Zora, “there you are. I knew they’d send you. What about Curtik?”

  Ned sauntered over, halting a few feet to Zora’s left and slightly behind her. “He’s busy with something else.”

  “Trying to save Brosk? Too late for that. Too late for any of us.”

  Now Sally2’s whole body shook and Zora suddenly realized that Sally2 didn’t intend to live after all. She’d been waiting for Ned and Curtik, hoping they’d both show so she could take them out too.

  “What have you done to yourself?” Zora asked.

  “You really think I want to live in a world like this?” Sally2 said. She raised the canister. Zora took another step. Six feet away. As Sally2 threw the canister to the ground, Zora dropped the Las-pistol and dove forward. She reached out with both hands as she landed on the cement floor, her head slamming into the concrete, her body scraping against the stone. The canister hit her left palm hard. Somehow she managed to hold onto it, her knuckles banging against the floor. But the canister didn’t break.

  Sally2’s eyes widened in surprise as a purple laser pulse hit her in the chest. She collapsed, landing awkwardly, her legs splayed out before her, a stunned expression on her face. She tried to speak, her lips moving, but nothing came out.

  Ned reached down and helped Zora to her feet.

  “That was amazing,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders and giving her a hug. “I can’t believe you caught it. Well done. I thought Jeremiah was fast, but I don’t think even he could have done that. Well done, Zora.”

  A warmth spread through her. She only wished the arms around her weren’t Ned’s. “Sally2?” she asked.

  Ned released her, picking up the Las-pistol as Major Somers and Timothy ran forward. Timothy kept his Las-rifle trained on Sally2.

  Ned glared at Sally2. “She’ll live. We’ll be able to extract all her secrets, everything she knows about creating the virus, though she may not have much of a mind remaining when we’re done with her.”

  “Such a waste,” Zora said.

  Major Somers reached Zora’s side and carefully took the canister from her hand. “That was a hell of a thing you did, Zora. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. You did a phenomenal job. Thank you.”

  “Yes,” Lendra said. “But we’ve still got work to do. You’d better get back here.”

  Ned rolled his eyes. “You’re welcome, Lendra.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lendra said. “Thank you. Very well done.”

  Ned smiled. “See how easy that was? We’re on our way.”

  Chapter 27

  Pleased that her expectation of the interrogation room—a table and two hardback chairs, one of them facing a large two-way mirror—was wrong, Sally23 reclined on a comfortably padded sofa. The truth drugs they’d given her made her feel light, almost as if she risked floating up to the ceiling. She wondered if the drugs were accelerating the spread of the virus inside her, if she would die more quickly. She didn’t really care, but it was an interesting question.

  The screen facing her showed two black women watching the interrogation. One she recognized as Lendra Riley, head of CINTEP. The other she didn’t know. Both wore interfaces so they could communicate without speaking. She felt almost as if she were in a zoo or a lab, being studied by scientists. She waved at them but got no response.

  Wes, the huge SAS trooper who’d led the way to Westminster Bridge, conducted her interrogation. She opened message boards and demonstrated how to contact the various sites. Then he asked about the organization and its plans for the future. But since she’d already told Curtik everything she knew, all she could do was reiterate what she’d said previously. She hid nothing. No doubt the drugs reinforced her desire to tell the truth, but she experienced no side effects at all, for she wanted to tell them everything.

  Assuming Sally1 didn’t accelerate the timetable, they had less than sixteen hours until she released her final version of the virus. Sally23 kept telling them that, hoping they’d take action, but Wes continued to ask the same questions over and over, and Sally23 wondered if anyone would stop this new threat. She also informed them that there was probably a Sally cell in China. Occasionally when the questioning halted for a moment, she felt a tug of anxiety: a minor itch she couldn’t scratch. Was that the drugs?

  “And what do you know about this final version of the virus?” Wes asked again. “The one that Manyara Harris developed.”

  “Nothing,” Sally23 replied the same as before. “Except that it might be water soluble.”

  “Why do you think that?” Wes asked.

  “Sally2’s last version of the virus was water soluble.”

  “Yes, it is. But why do you think Sally1’s version might be water soluble?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  “Were you involved in creating it?” Wes returned to the questions he’d asked before.

  “No,” Sally23 replied, “though I assisted in some of the modifications. My background is in computer science and organic chemistry.”

  Now the conversation returned to familiar ground, Wes asking, in slightly different ways, the same questions he’d asked previously. Sally23 answered everything honestly, giving essentially the same responses she’d provided earlier.

  At one point Wes stopped his questions and her mind drifted to something that had been bothering her. She said, “What happened to Sally2?”

  Wes smiled and left the room. She lay back on the sofa and thought about Trogan Brosk. She wanted to cry for him, mourn his passing in some way, yet she found it difficult to dredge up any real emotion. And soon enough she would be joining him. Already she felt a tightening in her chest similar to what Trogan would have felt, sans the nano-explosives. The pressure didn’t quite reach a level where it could be called pain, but it definitely made he
r uncomfortable, forcing her lungs to work just that little bit harder to get the same volume of oxygen in her bloodstream—a sign that she’d reached the final stages of the infection. Next would come numbness in her extremities, then unconsciousness and death.

  She fell asleep thinking about Trogan.

  She awoke to Wes shaking her shoulder, her stomach slightly nauseated. Her limbs felt heavy and she struggled to keep her eyes open. She sat up. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Take a look.” Wes pointed to the door. “Come on in, Ned.”

  The short black man from Hyde Park—one of the CINTEP agents—pushed Sally2 into the room. She sat strapped to a wheelchair, drooling and spasming, electrodes on her temples, her hands clenched into fists. She caught Sally23’s eye, took a few deep breaths and said, “See what they’ve done to me?” Her head twitched. “These men are raping my brain. I . . . I . . . I can’t stop them.”

  Sally23 said, “How is that different from what you did to us? You took us and twisted us to your purposes, conditioning our minds until we had no free will. You’re a monster.”

  “You think this ends it?” Sally2 said. “They’re going to take what I know and use it against the rest of the world. That’s what they do. They claim some national security crisis and then take away our rights, and we let them. They give our knowledge to big corporations, who use it to control us. I wasn’t doing anything they don’t do. I just wasn’t being as subtle.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you know, girl? You gave them a powerful weapon. They now have access to everything I know. All my secrets. You think they’re not going to use them? My knowledge will help them tighten their grip on humanity, squeeze people a little more, bring us that much closer to willing servitude. You did this by giving me to them. And now you’re going to pay the price.”

  “You’re wrong,” Sally23 said.

  “They will condition our minds to make us happy with whatever they tell us. They’ll program us to live the lives they want us to lead. We’ll beg them to lead us into slavery. You’ll see.”

  “I think that’s enough,” Wes said. He turned to Sally23. “We’re sending you to the Yanks temporarily. But we’re not finished with you, so don’t think this means your freedom. I wanted you to see Sally2, so you would have an idea what may be in store for you should you survive. Get her out of here, Ned.”

  Ned stepped around the wheelchair. He reminded her a little of Trogan Brosk: something about the way he carried himself, as if completely comfortable in his skin. He looked neither happy nor angry—more like her image of Buddha, radiating calm.

  Sally2 said, “They’re either going to make you a slave or a vegetable. They’re going to rip your mind to shreds. You’d better hope you die.”

  “I don’t need to hope,” Sally23 said. “I am dying. You made sure of that.”

  “Come on, Sienna.” Ned held out her coat. “Yes, we know your real name.”

  “Sienna died long ago,” Sally23 said. “And I’ll be dead soon too.” She held up her hands. “My fingers are already tingling.”

  Ned showed no expression. He must hate her, but he was too well trained to give in to that emotion. He simply held out her coat a little farther. She stood up, wobbling slightly, and he steadied her so she could slip her coat on.

  Ned took her arm. “Let’s go. We’ve got a plane to catch.” As he hustled her out the door, she heard Sally2 yell:

  “Your death will be agonizing. I knew I never should have trusted you. I hope you rot in . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Sally23 struggled to keep pace with Ned. He walked her down a hallway past a security checkpoint where a guard simply waved them through, then out a side door to where a black limo waited. She coughed as she hit the open air, her lungs suddenly fighting for air. Ned pounded her on the back as he guided her to the limo.

  After settling into her seat, Sally23 managed to get her breathing under control. Ned climbed in beside her and told the driver to go. Then he turned to her and said, “There are some who believe you might be able to assist us in finding Manyara’s—Sally1’s—latest version of the virus. Or that you’ll be able to help us find some flaw in its design, some weakness that could prevent it from doing more damage.”

  “So tired,” Sally23 said. “I can barely think. You know I’m in the final stages of the disease, right?”

  Ned took her hands in his and rubbed gently, increasing the blood flow to her fingers. “You have no future. And your past is gone. You can only live in the present. You’ve aided us so far, but you’re not done yet. You have much to atone for.”

  “I think I might throw up.” Sally 23 took a deep breath as she fought to control her stomach. Ned released her hands, then pulled a patch from his pocket and pressed it to her neck. Almost immediately the urge to vomit dissipated. “What?”

  “It’s common to feel nausea when truth drugs wear off,” he explained. “I’ll see if I can get you some medication on the plane, something to keep you alive a little longer.”

  Sally23 closed her eyes. She wondered if Sally2 was right, if the people in control would use her knowledge to clamp down on society, to keep themselves insulated from anger and violence, to tamp down any hint of revolution by the masses. It didn’t really matter. Humans were doomed. Sooner or later they would vanish. Hopefully they wouldn’t take the rest of Earth’s species with them.

  When they reached the airport, Ned half-escorted, half-carried her to a small jet, where Curtik waited at the base of the stairs, flexing his mechanical hand, shaking his head and grinning.

  “Man, Neddy,” he said as they approached, “I don’t know how you did it.”

  Then he apparently noticed Sally23’s distress, for he took her in his arms and carried her up the stairs. “I got you,” he said.

  Curtik carried her to the seat next to the blond girl from the park while Ned went into the cockpit.

  A coughing spell hit her. She struggled to breathe all of a sudden, and the tightness in her chest struck her a physical blow, constricting her airways. She gasped, twitching, her mouth gaping as she fought for air.

  “Neddy!” Curtik yelled. “We need you.”

  “She’s suffocating,” Zora called out.

  Sally23 focused on Curtik’s frowning face.

  “Breathe,” he said. “Just concentrate on that. Deep breaths. In and out.”

  Zora put her arms around Sally23’s body and squeezed tightly. Sally23, unable to get any air, punched her in the head and Zora released her grip. A modicum of air made it into Sally23’s lungs. Again Zora hugged her tightly. This time Sally23, realizing Zora was helping her breathe, managed not to hit her.

  “That’s it,” Curtik said.

  “Too late,” Sally23 gasped. “I’m dying.”

  “Not on my watch,” Ned’s voice sounded distant. “Hand,” he said.

  Zora grabbed Sally23’s hand and held it up. To Sally23’s surprise, Ned pressed a hypo-pad to her, holding it in place for a moment as he stared into her eyes. She stared back, thinking he was rather kind, until her eyes closed and her mind went blank.

  ***

  The angled light of sunrise through Lendra’s office windows should have made the place look cheery, but all Taditha Poole felt was fear. They weren’t going to find the virus in time, she realized. Manyara had somehow disappeared, probably to release her newest version. That disappearance should have been impossible, for she had been under covert surveillance. How had she done it? She could be anywhere in the city right now, spreading the deadliest strain yet.

  Poole held her son Jack as she stood beside Lendra, watching the multiple screens Jay-Edgar displayed, most showing aerial views of the area around Washington, DC. One, however, showed the interrogation of Dr. Shafer, who held back nothing, her will to fight completely suppressed by drugs and nanobots. The process had bee
n violent, a forcible extraction of information that would leave only a shell of a mind behind. Good. The bitch deserved it.

  Unfortunately, Dr. Shafer knew nothing about Manyara’s version of the virus, for they developed their strains in separate labs. However, they worked from the same basic templates, so Poole hoped they might one day find a cure. They were now deep into the details of specific strains of Dr. Shafer’s virus and Lendra had asked Jay-Edgar to turn down the audio.

  She was focused, Poole saw, on the center screen, where CINTEP’s medical team, all dressed in haz-mat suits, were in the process of giving Sophie a transfusion from Jeremiah, his blood filtered to remove the Susquehanna Virus. Little Jack Marschenko, now over the flu, slept quietly in Poole’s arms, while Sophie lay unconscious on the operating gurney. She looked so tiny on the bed that Poole almost couldn’t bear to watch. Jeremiah sat beside her, stroking her hair, his face fallen in sorrow.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Lendra said. “It’s just a staph infection. How can my baby be dying?”

  Poor little girl, Poole thought. She might not last the day. But Lendra needs comforting and we need Lendra.

  She said, “Sophie will pull through.”

  “You can’t know that. This is a new and dangerous variant. Resistant to every antibiotic so far.”

  “Trust me,” Poole said, loathing herself for giving Lendra false hope. “If she was anyone else’s daughter, she’d probably die. But she’s got Jeremiah’s genes. She’s tough. She’ll make it.”

  Lendra touched her shoulder. “I know you’re just saying that to be kind, but thank you. I can’t even think straight.”

  “You’re doing great,” Poole said.

  Lendra smiled briefly. “When do you think I can visit her?”

  “They should be done with the transfusion any minute.”

  “Okay.” Lendra bobbed her head up and down. “Okay. I suppose we should get back to work.”