The Reaper Plague (2 page)

She blinked at him, eyes narrowing, puzzled,
then turned away, hunching. “I didn’t say anything.”

An idea struck him, a fearful one. “You’re…”
Skull closed his mouth, determined to try an experiment. He formed
a thought of leaping to his feet and bashing Raphaela violently
with the butt of his weapon, bludgeoning her repeatedly until in
his imagination she became a mass of blood and torn flesh.

She blinked once, slowly, staring at the new
viewscreen.

“
So I guess you’re not a
telepath? Or perhaps you’re a very good one.”

She turned back to him, raised an eyebrow,
sarcastic. “Oh, I can talk now?” She folded her hands in her lap.
“And how would you know if I was?”

He smiled thinly. “I suppose I wouldn’t, not
for certain.”

“
Well, I’m not. And by the
way, I actually am human no matter what you think, and I’m getting
tired of being on the wrong end of that gun, and I’m just plain
tired. This is about as perfect a body as Raphael could build but
it’s not invincible. Meme don’t sleep, but I’m not a Meme anymore
so I’m going to bed for a while. Maybe you should get some rest
too.” She rose from her seat, no sashaying this time, but her
barefoot pace across the naked floor was elegant and lovely. An
opening in the bulkhead appeared before her and she stepped
through.

Anxiety roused him, almost panic, at her
leaving his presence. Before the opening could close he leaped
across the control room to stand in the doorway. After a moment he
realized that he might have done a very stupid thing. If the iris
should close with enough force it could chop him in half, but it
didn’t. Instead he watched as Raphaela lay down on a cushioned
half-circle dais that extruded from the floor. She faced away from
him. A pillow rose from the bed to support her head, and she seemed
to fall asleep instantly.

Skull wondered now what he should do, whether
he should go forward or back. Forward, he decided; he could always
compel her to let him out of the room, but he might not be able to
get back in. As soon as he did, the wall sealed itself behind him,
silently, cleanly. He half-turned to examine the surface but could
find no hint of a seam or hinge or flaw.

“
Alan…”

He regarded her looking at him with that
contemptuous amused catlike expression
– am I dreaming
again?
– and so he took two quick strides and slapped her hard
across the face, hating the look, hating himself and his own
violent desire, the anger within him.

Raphaela didn’t throw her hand to her face in
shock. She didn’t shriek or scream or even flinch. She just took
the blow and turned back to him, tears forming. “Alan…you don’t
need to abuse me or threaten me. I told you I’d do what you
wanted.” She was very near now, and she sat up straighter on the
bed, closer to him, and he felt her presence like furnace heat on
his face, upon his body.

I don’t care if it is a dream.
The
dams of his control burst. His lips sought hers and she responded
eagerly and his world became nothing but her and him and him and
her for a space and a time, until he lay wrung out, twisted,
gasping, with nothing left but to drift off into a long-forgotten
sleep of peace.

The Secret Service agents that led Jill
Repeth to the Executive Mansion command center were stiffly
deferential but Jill knew she was still an outsider, not quite an
opponent, almost an enemy. She’d turned half the Presidential
detachment into Edens with Needleshock and she’d avoided killing
anyone, but it wasn’t their bodies that retained the pain, it was
their pride.

She’d made it to within a hair’s breadth of
shooting President McKenna, and the fact that he’d wanted to be
shot, had wanted the Eden virus, didn’t change a thing in their
minds. They’d been lax, had almost failed. Actually had failed,
since they’d missed the syringe of Eden Plague she’d left in a
pretty box on his desk.

If it had been a bomb, their principal would
have been vaporized.

One of the agents motioned her to an empty
desk with a computer and then backed away. She had to get a tech to
help her set up the call, all the way to South Africa. The internet
was generally slow and unreliable since the satellites died, but
Presidential priority got her through.

The first face she saw was a most welcome
one. “Rick! I’d hoped you were on duty. I’m calling through
official channels. It’s…I’m…” She ground to a halt, suddenly
overwhelmed. She’d been in Marine mode for so long that now, with
strangers all around her and half a world between her and her love,
she just couldn’t say what she wanted to. Couldn’t really even put
words together.

He smiled, delighted just to see her face.
“It’s all right. Do you have a personal phone number where I can
reach you?”

“
Yes, use Christine
Forman’s quarters.” She rattled off the number of the place she had
been hiding in plain sight for so long. “Listen, Rick, I…I love you
but I’m hogging someone else’s priority line. I just wanted to tell
everyone back there that I’m staying.”

Astonishment warred with distress on Rick
Johnstone’s visage. “Staying?”

“
Yes. The President
pardoned me – in fact he pardoned all American citizens who took
political and military action against the Unionist regime – and I’m
a US Marine. I have to stay. There’s too much to be
done.”

His face fell but he nodded gamely. “All
right. I can hardly remember America. I was eleven when I left…but
I’m sure we can work something out.”

She nodded, emphatic. “Yes, we can and we
will
. Call me tonight at that number and we’ll talk, all
right? I still love you.”

He smiled weakly. “Good to know. A guy’s
gotta wonder when his girl keeps going off to war every other
week.”

She sighed. “It’s been the same for every
warrior since Sparta.”

“
With your shield or on it,
huh? Okay, I’ll pass the word.”

“
Please do. I have to go,
I’m getting the stink eye. Bye, sweetheart.” She flipped the webcam
cover shut before she said something really stupid.
Even
stupider than I already did. ‘I still love you?’ Lame, Jill, and
weak.

What she’d said about dirty looks was true
and it wasn’t. The techs didn’t care; she thought they might even
be enjoying the soap opera. The two agents, however, radiated
hostility; doubly so because of what she just said about staying in
the US.

Whatever.
She got up and mentally put
the mantle of the Marine back on, stalking haughtily out, ignoring
her two escorts, a lioness attended by sheepdogs.
From what I
hear, they’ll get theirs soon enough.

Brigadier Nguyen sat down at the round table
before his colleagues. As the most junior member – in seniority,
not in age – he made sure he was not the last one in. That honor
was reserved for Ariadne Smythe, first among equals of the
Committee, the shadow power within the Australian Free
Community.

In truth, Nguyen reflected, it was a
strangely functional Jekyll-Hyde relationship between the two
halves of the power structure.

Well-behaved, normal Edens carried out the
ordinary and overt functions of government – legislation, law
enforcement, collecting taxes, keeping records, organizing,
training and equipping the military forces – everything except
those things that by biology they could no longer do.

The Committee and its apparatus, composed of
Eden Plague-infected narcissists, ‘Psychos’ to the layman,
encompassed the black arts, the lethal activities that were so
useful – as long as they were tightly controlled. Each of the nine
members was powerful, and each was selfish and jealous and careful,
looking far into the future. The Plague, even for Psychos, had
extended their view, changing the definition of ‘short-term’ from
months to years or even decades. Lengthened lifespans naturally
made people conservative.

Smythe finally arrived, just late enough to
emphasize her status while not so late as to cause offense. It was
an old dance with new, rejuvenated faces.

“
This meeting of the
Committee is called to order. Welcome to our newest member,
Brigadier Nguyen Pham Tran. I hear his comrades call him ‘Spooky’.”
Chuckles rattled off the walls, died at Nguyen’s face. “I’m sure
everyone’s spies have thoroughly researched the Brigadier’s
background so I won’t waste any further time with biography. Mister
Johns, please remind us of any old business?”

The meeting proceeded quickly, dealing with
important but routine issues: Australian and enemy military
deployments, covert operations, psychological and physical
experiments on their own raw materials – remanded Psychos in their
custody.

A short discussion ensued about what to do
with the five defecting US nano-commandos. In the end, they voted
unanimously to assign them to General Nguyen’s new Direct Action
command. They pointedly did not discuss the five hostage children;
Nguyen had already insisted on handling the matter personally.

Behind Nguyen, Ann Alkina took notes. Now
dressed as a plain Army captain, she functioned as his aide and
personal assistant in public, his lover in private. The tapping of
her fingers on the keyboard joined the background noises of other
aides and assistants behind their respective principals.

Nguyen waited until all old and other new
business had been dealt with before he spoke. “I have a new topic
for consideration and study.” His eyes swept the table. “Let me
briefly review. This nation is largely unaffected by the recent
nuclear exchange and by the Demon Plagues, but our biological
research facilities are not as advanced as those in South Africa,
where the Free Communities – pardon, the
other
Free
Communities –” quiet laughter at the table – “have concentrated
their research facilities. Our intelligence services have an
incomplete but sufficient picture of the United States’ massive
nanomachine project ‘Tiny Fortress’, and within hours we will have
actual living examples of the results. The Chinese still have a
considerable cyber-warfare capability. The Russians as usual have
nothing but a mess.” Another round of chuckles. “And the Neutral
States have economic power. But what do
we
have?”

James Ekara, the shadow Minister of Research
and Development, answered, looking down at his perfectly-manicured
nails. “We have an undamaged continent, a lot of undeveloped
natural resources, and a bunch of shiny happy Edens to work their
arses off for us.”

“
And we have the long
view,” snapped Smythe. “Still, our lives are not infinite. Make
your point, Nguyen.”

“
My point is, madam, the
rest of the world is working frantically to beat the Demon Plagues.
They have opened the floodgates on research for everything
biological and, in many cases, nanological. We can acquire anything
we need in these areas without investing much – after all, Markis
is giving away every beneficial medical development the Free
Communities come up with, and I believe he will persuade the
Neutral States to do so as well. We already have the US
nano-vaccine for Edens, and soon we will have living samples of
their latest supersoldier-makers. But no one is looking past the
Demon Plagues.”

Right on cue, Ekara asked, “Looking past to
what?”

Nguyen was glad he had primed the prissy
scientist beforehand.

“
To the real invasion,” he
said, “when the aliens show up to colonize us. So let’s assume the
rest of the world does save themselves and us from the biological
threat. We need to put minimum resources into such research and
maximum resources into the next area of war.”

“
Which is?”

“
Space. As long as the
aliens have control of the space around this planet, they have the
high ground and we will always be vulnerable. The alien Raphael
said they do not have faster-than-light travel, and that one of
their ships will be here within a year. If that ship can drop
objects on us at will – more diseases, or perhaps asteroids – we
will never progress into space, never beat them. And we do not know
what will come after, when they find out that their plagues did not
wipe us out. We
must
get into space. We need a genuine
warship.” Nguyen folded his hands in front of him, looking
contemplatively, even humbly down at the table in front of him. In
this group of powerful and jealous people, it paid to speak
softly.

Transportation magnate Mathilde Van Berson,
large, puffy, florid – Spooky hated to think what she would look
like without the Eden Plague working overtime to force health upon
her protesting body – asked, “What about the alien and the
nanocommando – Denham? – that took off with the alien
spacecraft?”

Nguyen’s soft response hinted of steel. “We
have only a few initial reports right now. I will inquire of
Chairman Markis as soon as his and the Nightingale children are on
their way back to them. I know Denham well: whatever he is doing,
he is doing because he believes it will help to save humanity.”
A bit of shading the truth, but…
“No matter, we cannot
depend on my friend Alan Denham’s desperate gamble.” His eyes
sought each member in turn, emphasizing his connections to so many
important players, enhancing his new status within their
assembly.

“
But the resources!” Van
Berson whined. “Our economy is at full capacity, we are
experiencing inflation, labor shortages, fuel shortages…we can’t
support the projects already underway.”

“
It seems to me that is a
matter for the Free Communities Council. Chairman Markis is very
adept at forging cooperative enterprises. And the Neutral States
have enormous reserve industrial capacity. They should be invited
to contribute to Earth’s defense.”