The Loss (Zombie Ocean Book 4) (2 page)

"Vitals?" she asked.

One of her analysts snapped a button and the primary's infographics popped up on the side of the screen. It was in a deep-wave state, with a strong pulse and lively spinal brain activity. Dreaming.

Salle settled in to position, bringing up her crossover packet with a touch on the screen. There was nothing she could do now but wait.

* * *

D-day began right on schedule at two in the afternoon.

For the thirty minutes before that she had to listen to the paraplegic talking to her agent. She knew all about the grudge between them, but didn't care; what mattered was the primary. Its vitals were changing for the first time in ten years. It was waking up.

"Show me the aerial view," she ordered.

A fresh window appeared over the other two, shot from a down-facing camera mounted to one of their three remaining drones. It was circling at 10,000 feet, and through its eye the white Maine countryside was rendered like a splodge of spilled ice cream on gray asphalt, with snowy fields and forests contained by the rise of Mt. Abraham to the east, Mt. Spaulding to the north and assorted foothills to the west.

"Zoom," she said.

Snow was falling, obscuring the view. The barometer on the screen was showing a steep drop-off signaling an imminent snowstorm. The temperature was down to minus fifteen; cold enough the agent had switched on several heaters along the hallway.

The view contracted and focused, with a barely perceptible drift from the gliding drone. The field where the demon was located, in its own private bunker where once the sentinel gun and comms tower had stood until her agent blew it up, grew larger. Fresh snow had filled in the agent's footsteps and the trail he'd dug dragging the paraplegic over. The hole into the bunker itself was a black speck, sealed with a manhole. The primary underground was marked out by a flashing blue dot, showing the genetic tracker in its system was working well.

"It's moving," Joseph called, from his screen nearby.

The drone view peeled away and the screen filled again with the twin views of the hallway. Salle stared as the primary, so long-awaited, opened its eyes for the first time. They were red with sharp black pupils.

"Wow," somebody said in the hall.

The agent was on his knees before the glass door with arms raised, like he was praying. That was a trick she'd used in the early days, to get him on side. Nearby the black guy was struggling against his chains. The primary's infographics on the side of the screen began to shift into territory they'd never seen before; core temperature rising rapidly, spinal brainwaves spiking up, spillover magnetic effects growing strong enough to spin any nearby compasses madly.

The prisoners in the hallway, all except the paraplegic, stopped struggling and stared as it woke. The agent was babbling some nonsense. Salle hardly dared breathe as the primary lifted its arms and legs from their rests and took its first step up to the glass door that had contained it for so long. Tears welled in her eyes. This meant freedom for all her broken people. This made all the horror and sacrifice worth it.

It pressed its palms against the glass, the lock clicked and the door slowly ground open. The agent's babbling became screams as the primary stepped above him, seized his little face in its giant hands, and squeezed his jaw open.

"Here it comes," one of her top drone pilots muttered.

The primary leaned in, fastened its black hole of a mouth over the agent's lower face, and began to vomit with a rough coughing sound.

"Holy shit," someone said.

"Oh my God," said somebody else.

The agent's body flapped like a balloon figure outside a car dealership, bucking and flicking as hot air filled him. His legs spasmed, his chest heaved and then he was dropped to the ground.

Not a soul in the control room moved.

"Commander," Joseph murmured uncertainly. She didn't need to reply. Somebody in the corner puked noisily, caught it in a waste bin and scurried out.

The agent lay on the cement flopping. The primary straightened up and moved on. It was horrific, no doubt, but this was what they'd been building to. This was hardly worse than the deaths of billions.

The primary moved to the paraplegic, who tried in vain to pull his face away, but it wrapped up his head, squeezed so tightly that his jaw cracked open, then pressed its black mouth over his in a gross parody of a kiss.

"I can't watch this," somebody said and ran down the aisle, gagging. Others groaned. Salle marked their names and watched as the primary vomited again. She'd known for years how it would infect others, but she'd never expected it to be quite so repulsive.

In the corner, the agent had stopped kicking. Now he was growing.

"I wish we had monitors in him too," Joseph said, and Salle turned to him. He was pale and sweating but professional. He noticed her looking. "Amazing data."

The vomiting cough started again, and the paraplegic's body convulsed in its chains. Salle forced herself to watch. This was the price and she paid it gladly. Behind the demon the agent's arms and legs were elongating, his skin was turning pink and his muscles swelled like squash growing in one of the farm halls.

"Where does the mass come from?" Joseph said quietly. "It's phenomenal."

More people were gagging now. She marked their names. The vomiting halted and the paraplegic hung slack on his chains, with his belly distended like he was pregnant. Salle almost gagged too but choked it back.

"The primary," she said quietly to Joseph, "he weighs nearly three tons. Mostly it's the incredibly dense infection cells stored in his gut. He's like a pressurized canister full of virus."

Speaking helped; made her feel some element of control in an affair that was now completely out of her control. Joseph nodded and watched with fascination and disgust as the demon moved on.

The agent had almost doubled in size already. The paraplegic was growing too. A brittle clank signaled his chains snapping, followed by a thump as he dropped to his knees on the floor. Not a paraplegic anymore. Beside him the agent rose to his feet. He was nearly as tall as the primary now.

"Do you have him?" Salle called.

The top-down drone view appeared again above the hallway scene. It was snowing thickly now, and the black speck of the bunker's manhole was completely obscured, but there were two flashing blue dots near the center. That meant the genetic tracker in the primary had transferred successfully.

"We got him," the drone pilot answered, and a cheer went up.

They were on their way out.

Then a grunting sound came from the hallway behind the drone overlay, along with a sudden movement of red at the edge of the screen. Salle leaned forward on her desk, accidentally pushing the live microphone button.

"What was that?" she demanded of the control room. "Somebody explain to me what just happened."

The drone view snapped away, and in the hallway beneath it she could see the agent-demon was looking at the paraplegic-demon. But they shouldn't be doing that. Like ants, she'd read, but then ants didn't…

Salle turned. "Joseph?"

He was paler than before. "Looked like a throw. A judo throw, over his shoulder." He gulped. "Like a fight."

She whirled back. The primary was still vomiting his way up the hallway, ignorant of whatever his secondaries were doing behind him. The paraplegic was holding the agent by the arms, looking into his eyes. It was impossible.

Then the paraplegic spoke. Salle stared. That was certainly impossible, not with all the tremendous changes coursing taking over his nervous system. Yet the microphones caught it, and everyone in the control room heard it.

"I know you're in there," he went.

There was nothing Salle could do but watch, until the agent replied with a gruff bark. "Cerulean?"

Salle lost it. "What the hell is happening?" she shouted. Then the paraplegic dived.

His shoulder crunched into the agent's middle and drove him back against the tall glass door, where he lifted him up then slammed him into the ground. Salle gasped. In a second the paraplegic had straddled the bigger agent like it was a cage match, and was punching him in the face. Another second later he rolled sideways so his arms were wrapped around the agent's head, his thick legs were coiled around his neck, and he pulled.

"He's not supposed to be doing that," Salle said, absent her usual authority, more like a lost child than anything. "That's not supposed to happen."

There was a ripping sound, a scream, then the agent's newly grown head tore away from his body. Priceless infection cells sprayed from his torn neck.

"Oh my God," Salle said, looking from the bloody paraplegic and on to the primary. It hadn't even noticed; wasn't doing anything but strolling along and puking into the next. Everything could end right here…

"Do something!" she shouted at him. "Stop this bastard before he kills them all."

The paraplegic didn't wait to find out; he rose to his feet, took two steps down the hall, then dropped his elbow into the back of the next secondary, as it knelt on the ground. It fell flat and in a second the paraplegic pulled its head off too.

Hot fluids blew out. The paraplegic began to laugh, a horrible gasping bark.

"Do something," Salle shouted at the primary, "put him down!"

But the primary didn't turn, not as the paraplegic tore the head off the next, nor the next, nor as he crushed the head of the most recent against the wall with a single massive punch.

"No," Salle called.

He was almost as big as the primary now, and he charged, colliding against the primary's back with a huge THUNK. The primary lurched a few steps forward, heavier by far, but the paraplegic was braced and pulling now, and the primary was actually being dragged back down the hall toward the glass door. It didn't fight back; probably it didn't even know what was even happening, though it was struggling.

The paraplegic forced one of its arms straight, then punched through the elbow joint with a gristly crunch. It roared and Salle yelped and others in the control room shouted in horror. Now it tried to fight, swinging a giant fist downward, but the paraplegic caught it, locked the arm punched through that elbow too.

"Oh my God," Salle whispered.

The primary howled and the paraplegic kicked and drove it like a heap of tumbleweed back into its glass cabinet.

Salle watched transfixed. It was like something out of a movie, impossible in reality. It was the end of all her dreams. They'd be locked in their little can forever, pressurized like the contents of the primary's gut.

Then a wave of calm came over her. She'd been here before. She'd done much worse.

"Scramble the drones," she ordered, her voice coming out calm and controlled. "Bomb the shit out of him."

"Yes sir!" one of the drone pilots replied, and two fresh infographics lit up on the screen's edge representing the last two operational drones they had. How many bombs left? She counted a full complement of fifteen on each, plus fifteen on the one in the air.

45.

They launched, as the paraplegic ran back down the hallway pulling apart the chains of her prisoners. The metal tore easily in his hands, and each one was a blow, each one meant they were trapped here another day, another month, another year.

In minutes he broke all the chains and set them all free. Some fell on their faces and lay still, while the more recent ones ran back to help them.

"Do not flee," Salle tried, calling over the system in a calming, authoritative tone. "Help is coming. Remain where you are for evacuation." But none of them listened. They'd heard her already, they'd listened to her talk to Julio for years, and now they were listening to the paraplegic.

"Get them out!" he barked roughly, the words barely formed through his round hole of a mouth.

He helped them get to the ladder leading up, where they set the agent's winch running to lift out the broken ones. Salle watched helplessly as the drones somewhere far overhead reached a safe bombing altitude. Her primary was pushing the door open now, his broken elbows repairing themselves from the precious load of cells in his belly, but it didn't look like he'd make it in time. They were mostly out now.

"Go west!" the paraplegic barked as the last load went up in the winch basket. "Warn Amo."

Warn Amo.

Those words were the worst she could imagine. If this group warned Amo, his people could scatter and it would take far more than two years to round them all up again. They didn't have that kind of time.

The primary broke out of the glass cupboard and ran down the hallway, ignoring the swaying figure of the paraplegic. Cheers broke out in the control room as it started up the ladder, though at the last moment the paraplegic snatched at its ankle and held on.

"Shit," Salle cursed under her breath. "Give me aerial."

The top down drone view appeared to the side in split-screen. The snow was falling so thickly now that she could scarcely pick out the thin black line of escapees as they ran to the agent's white van. A flurry of snow blocked the camera.

"Bring it back down, we need visibility," she ordered.

"It's already at two thousand feet," one of the pilots protested. "Any lower and we risk getting caught up in the storm."

"I don't care," Salle said. "If we can't stop that van, it's over. Drop it down and switch to thermal imaging."

"Yes, sir," the pilot replied, and the stats for the drones plummeted as they took steep dives through the rain of snow. A second later a filter swept across the screen, clearing away the pure white and replacing it with a pale blue. There was a hot red speck in the middle, representing the bunker hole where heat was escaping. The bodies of the escapees were a ghostly pink trail leading from it; so faint they were barely visible.

"Can you target them?" she asked.

"Not well, sir," the pilot replied. "The snow's too thick, I can't tell what I'm seeing."

"Use your judgment. Bomb those people, captain, and do it now."

The first bomb detached from the drone's icon on the right. At the same time the primary finally escaped Cerulean's grip, emerging out into the white where he throbbed as a moving blue dot. Seconds later the first explosion blossomed as a transient flare of red heat across the pale map. The blue dot ran right through it. The control room trembled slightly as the vibrations reached them.