Project Sail (4 page)

A pilot came from the front and whispered in Fisk’s ear, causing his eyes to widen and his smile to evaporate.

“Um, our itinerary must change. Dr. Wren is not at Boston University right now.” Fisk went into a cycle of straightening his lapel and tugging at his jacket cuffs, a sign of both nerves and a touch of obsessive compulsiveness. “It seems Dr. Wren is out doing fieldwork so we will, um, have to go and collect him. In England.”

Carlson remained silent but a tremble developed in his lower lip.

Hawthorne rummaged through the refreshment drawer hoping to find a pony bottle of Scotch or bourbon. A drink before noon sounded like a good idea when travelling to the most dangerous real estate on Earth.

“At least I don’t have to worry about getting killed when we pass the asteroid belt. Hell, I’m not going to make it off the planet.”

5. England

Hawthorne exited the lavatory and walked toward his seat, pausing as he passed Fisk who studied a photograph as if it were a puzzle. At first, the lenticular photo showed a dark haired woman smiling, but when the image shifted, she closed her eyes and blew a kiss.

“She’s beautiful.”

“She’s from Monterrey in the Mexican states,” Fisk explained and flashed a
genuine
smile. “She left UVI to work in her father’s restaurant. I proposed last year during a Venus cruise just as our orbit took us into sunrise. I planned it down to the exact moment because I wanted it to be perfect.”

“Mr. Fisk, most plans in space do not go perfectly.”

“I know you are a cynic, but I believe we can make a difference. When I think about having kids someday, I want it to be better for them. It’s not just about energy and minerals, but new ideas and the chance for humanity to evolve which we are never going to do without space exploration.”

Hawthorne told him, “Everyone wants it to get better, but people usually find a way to screw things up.”

---

As they neared England, Fisk noted a clause in Hawthorne’s contract requiring him to assist in crew recruitment. If he did not, the Corporate Entitlement Acts of 2083 allowed for his arrest.

That thirty-year-old law meant Hawthorne had to escort Fisk into the ruins of the United Kingdom whereas Carlson, as a mission specialist, was under no such obligation.

As the plane flew over the moorlands of Dartmoor National Park, Hawthorne saw fenced-in tent cities, sanitation trailers, and muddy roads while smoke from campfires and portable incinerators generated a murky haze.

The plane slowed to a hover and the jets rotated for vertical support. His stomach jumped as they descended behind high walls until a roof slid shut, sealing them inside a hangar. Hawthorne spied the red, white, blue, and green North American flag hanging from a wall.

As Fisk approached his two passengers, Hawthorne remarked, “No offense, but I never thought a black man could look as white as a ghost.”

A cheap shot, perhaps, but he felt the traps built into his contract were cheap shots, too. Besides, Fisk was clearly out of his league. His eyes were wide, his mouth trembling, and he walked in a gait that combined the stagger of a zombie with the nervous energy of a man treading hot coals.

“Commander, we will collect Dr. Wren. He is at a research camp outside Exeter, about seventeen miles away.”

Hawthorne said, “I suppose I am driving?”

Fisk just stared at him through big wide eyes.

“Sure, that’s probably in my contract, too.”

They left Carlson alone in the plane with his wrist computer.

The garrison commander denied Fisk’s request for an armed escort, saying there had been no recent reports of feral hostiles in the American sector. However, he did equip them with white biohazard gear including ponchos and masks as well as dosimeters, a dented and scratched GPS, a vehicle, and a word of advice: follow the A30 from the base at Whiddon Down to Exeter where they would find Wren’s research and reclamation camp.

Their buggy ran on a hybrid engine that alternated between a gasoline-powered growl during acceleration and an electronic hum while coasting. Hawthorne favored the gas pedal as they drove away from the American outpost.

Seventeen years ago, this was picturesque countryside but the meadows, creeks, and farms had been displaced by mountains of biohazard drums, piles of bulldozed debris, and smoldering bonfires. Any patches of nature that remained had withered from a decade of chemical bombardment.

Saving the United Kingdom had meant killing everything. Hawthorne and Fisk wore biohazard suits more for protection from the agents employed to cure the country than the bacterium that had spoiled it.

After twenty minutes, they followed GPS directions onto Dunsford road, leaving behind the remains of countryside for the remains of suburbia. Instead of wilting woods and brown grassland, they came on neighborhoods reduced to piles of charred timber. Fire had been another weapon of choice in battling the outbreak, even atomic fire.

They arrived at a hermetically sealed tent built alongside what had been the Royal Oak Inn on Okehampton Street. Hawthorne parked next to a white van sporting the blue and gold Universal Visions, Inc., logo. A man in hazmat gear greeted them with a pistol.

Fisk exited the buggy, raised his hands, and said, “We’re here from UVI for Dr. Wren.”

The man pointed east and told them, “He’s down by the river.”

They followed his direction to a slope overlooking the riverbank. Two men in protective garb with North American badges worked by the water, one scooping samples from the river, the other feeding those samples to an analyzer.

Fisk descended and called, “Dr. Wren?”

The one scooping samples turned to face the newcomers.

“Get the fuck away from me, I’m doing important shit.”

“Um, doctor, I am Reagan Fisk from UVI corporate, we spoke last week.”

“I don’t give a piss.”

“I am sorry, doctor, but you must come with us.”

Wren went at Fisk like a charging bull but instead of horns, he stuck a finger in the smaller man’s chest.

“I do not give a flying backward fuck who you are, there is no fucking way I am going anywhere. Now, go away like a good corporate cunt.”

Hawthorne felt a pang of sympathy for the diminutive Fisk.

“Hey, calm down.”

“Who the fuck are you? No wait, you can piss off, too.”

A radio strapped to Wren’s belt interrupted his tirade.

“Leo, a contact just tripped a wire over the coast and is moving this way.”

Wren climbed the bank and hurried toward the camp radioing, “Another Alliance incursion?”

“Negative, too small.”

Fisk followed at a fast trot calling, “Dr. Wren, please!”

Wren showed no interest in Fisk or Hawthorne until they came to the camp. Hoses and cables ran from Wren’s company van in to the tent, providing power and clean air.

“I need your buggy.”

“Dr. Wren, we have to talk.”

“I need your fucking buggy you little weasel now give me the keys!”

To Hawthorne’s surprise, Fisk’s spine stiffened.

“The only way you are getting in our vehicle is to drive back to Whiddon Down.”

Wren paused in the face of unforeseen resistance and then spoke through grit teeth.

“You work for Universal Visions, right?”

“That is what I have been trying to say.”

“So do I and I need your car to do my job.”

“You are being reassigned.”

“Give me the buggy for an hour and when I get back I will do whatever you say.”

Fisk considered and then conceded with the condition, “Commander Hawthorne goes along.”

“Fine, fuck it,” and Wren accepted the keys then jumped in the buggy.

When Hawthorne did not move, Wren shouted, “Don’t just stand there looking retarded.”

The radio on the doctor’s belt broadcast, “It will fly over the city in a minute.”

Fisk took hold of the Commander’s arm and led him to the buggy.

“Make sure he gets back safe, he is part of
your
crew.”

“Is this part of my—”

“Yes,” Fisk assured, “it is.”

Jonathan stepped into the buggy just as Wren pulled away. A second later, they crossed the scorched remains of the Alphington Street Bridge and as they did, Hawthorne took in the enormity of what had happened to this nation.

Nothing stood taller than twenty feet in Exeter, leaving dunes of black soot sprinkled with stone, concrete, and twisted rebar

He did not realize he had muttered, “Jesus Christ” aloud until Wren responded.

“You fucks did this to my country.”

“America had nothing to do with this,” Hawthorne spoke loud enough to be heard over the accelerating engine. “Besides, I see a North American patch on your shoulder.”

Wren’s faceplate hid his features except for a thick tuft of hair and a big nose that had suffered multiple breaks.

“I lived in England before The Cut. But hey, at least your country took in refugees when the fucking European Alliance started nuking population centers.”

Hawthorne knew the Europeans had accepted millions of refugees, resulting in English, Welsh and Scottish enclaves inside France, Belgium, and Norway. With them came ethnic clashes, political chaos, and poverty. The proud people of the United Kingdom—at least the ones who survived the disease and containment protocols—were broken and scattered.

As for nukes, in retrospect such action appeared excessive, but had the bacteria nicknamed The Cut reached the mainland billions might have died.

“Look,” Wren pointed to a dot crossing the horizon above Exeter’s remains, “it’s headed north.”

His radio confirmed, “Leo, it keeps popping on and off the radar but now it is coming up over Birchy Barton and still flying northwest, maybe toward the university.”

The buggy swung between the river and the remains of a tall building seemingly toppled by a tornado of fire.

Wren preached to Hawthorne, “You are not so fucking stupid to believe it was an accident, right?”

“Hey, I’m just along for the ride.”

“Pretty fucking coincidental that we get a so-called extraterrestrial bacteria the same time we refuse to join the Alliance.”

The European Alliance had existed for decades without England before The Cut, but Hawthorne figured pointing that out would only aggravate his driver.

“No England, no need for that Martian colony or those space stations. U.K., gets fucked, the French, Germans and the rest grow stronger. They were always jealous of us, anyway.”

“Okay, fine, big conspiracy, but who are we chasing?”

“Fucking looters.”

No standing buildings, no trees, no grass, nothing. Exeter more resembled the remains of a well-used fireplace than a treasure trove.

“So, you’re telling me that some crooks slipped by coastal security and evaded the quarantine patrols to pick through this wasteland? Is this professional or is it personal, doctor?”

“Listen you condescending fuck, England existed for centuries before anyone discovered North America. It will take another hundred years before everything valuable is found, cataloged, and set aside for the future and I will not let looters take shit that belongs to the next generation. England is my country and I will protect it.”

Wren worked the wheel and they sped along a side street.

“How old were you when The Cut hit?”

There was a long pause until Wren answered, “Thirteen, but this is my home, understand? If I had refused American citizenship they were going to ship me over to those European cunts.”

“You curse a lot.”

“What?”

“What is your specialty, doctor?”

“Christ, you tracked me down and you don’t know? I do all sorts of shit but especially Quantitative Biology.”

They managed a quick look at the encroaching aircraft as it flew overhead: a small cargo prop plane with a fuselage sporting odd angles that suggested stealth technology.

Wren slowed the buggy as they drove a street with more standing walls than they had seen along the river. While nowhere near intact, several facades remained, like a Hollywood backlot.

Hearing through the mask was difficult, but Hawthorne recognized the roar of prop engines rotating into a vertical position for landing.

Wren’s spotter reported, “They dropped off our scopes somewhere just south of the university grounds.”

Hawthorne realized they entered a residential district remodeled seventeen years ago by explosions and fire, but his imagination mended the wrecked pieces. He saw the ghosts of kids kicking footballs in the street surrounded by shade trees and homes made of brick and wood.

Wren parked the buggy and said, “They are just around the corner.”

“Listen Leo, if you’re planning on doing something stupid, count me out.”

Nonetheless, Hawthorne followed Wren through a maze of ashes until stopping at an intersection. Around the corner in a field of brown rot sat the idling transport with its cargo ramp open and guarded by a man wearing a green military MOPP mask, a gray poncho, and work boots: patchwork hazmat gear. He also carried an older model assault rifle and paced nervously.

A steady thumping came to Hawthorne’s ears and he worried the intruders had brought a big robot, but then realized the sound came from his chest. It had been a long while since Jonathan Hawthorne faced combat but the fear felt familiar.

He told Wren, “The pilots stayed in the plane, which means they want to leave in a hurry. Probably a good idea to just let them go.”

Wren ignored the suggestion.

“The fucks must be after something valuable.”

Hawthorne saw only destroyed houses and rusting cars, he could not imagine thieves finding anything of value in these ruins. Of course, he knew not to say as much to Wren who saw the British Isles as his sovereign realm that he must protect from outsiders.

A second man exited a hole where a front door once stood. He too wore a mishmash of gear and carried an assault rifle, but also toted a sack full of plunder.

Wren sprinted across the street and tackled the looter sending both men to the ground behind the melted remains of a sedan. The sack and the gun slid away from the surprised intruder.

The guard at the plane jerked his trigger finger and then fought with his gun barrel for control, sending three rounds harmlessly into the air.