The Reaper Plague (21 page)

Muzik shrugged. “If I had to guess, the same
things all the other paranoid control freaks do – internment,
quarantine, prison, execution?”

“
Then we have to move fast.
Tonight, if possible.”

Muzik sighed. “We have maybe forty
effectives. Most of them are civilians with uniforms on, a few cops
– and you and me. What’s your plan?”

She straightened, smiling crookedly. “Me and
you, we sneak in and break them out. Just like old times, sir.”

“
Not much of a plan. Gonna
be tough.”

“
Tougher than the
Nebraska?”

“
At least we had hot
showers. And Spooky.”

“
And both your arms. Wish
they were all with us here.”

“
Me too.” He rubbed his eye
with a grimy finger, digging out something that he flicked
away.

“
Keep them searching around
here, will you? Just in case?”

“
Sure. But if they find
Rick…”

“
He’s probably dead. Yeah.
Even so.”

Muzik sighed. “All right. They’ll make sure.
I’ll tell the doc. She’s senior after me.”

“
Thanks, boss.”

-33-

The Homeland Security convoy laagered
overnight in Ashland at the insistence of Colonel Ray Moore. His
Virginia National Guard battalion garrisoned the town on behalf of
Governor Allaine, and Major Vargas was not about to argue too
strenuously about the invitation, not in the presence of armor that
could make short work of his MRAPs.

Besides, if he had wanted the Homies dead,
Moore could have destroyed them at a distance with tank fire and
there would have been nothing Vargas could have done about it. No,
someone had to extend some trust, and Special Envoy Tyler had made
it clear that that someone was going to be Vargas.

I knew he’d start to meddle sooner or
later. I should have killed him on the way and got it over
with.
Vargas started to sweat, despite the cooling afternoon
breeze. He felt nervous, shaky, and suddenly wondered whether one
of the Plagues had gotten to him despite the inoculations.

“
I insist on coming along
with you, sir,” he’d boldly declared to Tyler. Now Vargas wondered
what his recklessness had gotten him into. He hadn’t stayed alive
and moved up taking stupid risks, but now…well, the man did have
the ear of the President. A distinguished action now might set his
career on a meteoric path.
Hell, they’d offered that puta Marine
a commission, though the dumb bitch had turned it
down.

So he’d volunteered to come along, commanding
the one vehicle they had let drive into Richmond – after a thorough
search. They’d allowed the crew to keep their personal weapons but
had dismounted the minigun, and the infantry squad had to be left
behind.

Just a driver, an RTO, the Envoy and
himself.

A Humvee led them and a clanking Bradley
followed behind, its chain gun aimed point-blank at the rear of the
MRAP. Apparently trust only went one direction right now. Vargas
looked around again, wondering if the Richmonders were going to
double-cross them on the way or when they got to their destination.
That gun’s a message, clear as day, they intend to kill us. Kill
me. Yeah, that’s it. They’ll blow my head off because they know I
have the full combat nano, and leave Tyler to get the glory.
Bastards. Tyler must have already contacted them somehow, talked
them into it.
Vargas wiped his burning brow. His hand came away
bloody but he failed to notice.

The roads were clear, at least the ones they
used. Vargas saw people working, using heavy equipment to clear
wreckage and salvage vehicles. He could see vapors from distant
smokestacks, so some kind of industry throve. He also saw plenty of
burned-out buildings, and once a derailed train sprawled, a giant
child’s mad jumble of toys. Still, civilian trucks and cars moved
cautiously about, more and more as they passed through checkpoints
toward the heart of the city. And every one of the people looked at
him with secret smiles.

Tyler wedged himself up through the hatch,
then climbed up to ride on the top of the moving truck. Vargas
could swear the Envoy was enjoying himself, the wind of movement
whipping through his crew-cut hair.
Just trying to tempt
me…he’ll heal up from a fall. And if he didn’t…what kind of reward
would the President give to the man who saved the mission by
negotiating a settlement with Richmond after such a tragedy? One
little push…but it will have to be certain.

Vargas eyed the treads of the twenty-five ton
Bradley rumbling behind them, and he itched to reach out, snap the
man’s neck, then toss him under. It would be easy, with his full
combat nanites.

He was thankful no one had ever forced the
Eden Plague on him, so nothing would mess with his head. In fact,
he felt his mind was clearer than ever.

-34-

Only when the last survivor was dug out of
the fallen buildings did Repeth face the unpleasant task she had
been dreading. She walked out to the last tank sitting immobile in
the field, the one that had made it the closest. The one that Swede
had immobilized, had given his life to stop.

The behemoth squatted there in the tall
grass. Already it felt deserted, like those old tanks on static
display in front of public buildings, empty and dead. Two bodies
lay nearby, far fewer than Repeth would have expected, until she
remembered that most of the wounded would be Edens – either enemies
newly infected by the Needleshock rounds, or the ones on their
side. Only the dead – or the trapped – stayed in place.

Two minutes later she discovered another
possibility. The fourth body she found still breathed.
Unfortunately he was hamburger and bone splinters below the hips,
and suffering from healing starvation. She cursed herself for the
delay, hardly believing that even an Eden could be so badly wounded
and still live.

She knelt down, keying her radio as she
examined him. “Colonel, can you send out the doc with an aid bag
and a stretcher team? I found Swede Gunderson, but he’s in a bad
way.”

When Doc Horton got there she dropped the aid
bag and knelt down next to Swede. The doctor’s jaw set as she saw
the extent of the damage. “I’m surprised he’s still alive. It’s
going to take a while before his legs and…”

“
Yeah. And the rest of
him.”

“
God, what a mess.” The
doctor deftly threaded an IV needle into the man’s arm and rigged a
bag on the holder attached to the stretcher. “But if he survives
today, he’ll eventually get it all back.”

“
I’m sure he’ll be glad of
that. Man’s not a man without a manhood.”

The doc chuckled grimly. “Better work on that
sense of humor. It’s not dark enough.”

As the stretcher team arrived Jill swept her
vision along the treeline to the north. She didn’t see anything but
since she was halfway there… “Doc, if you’re okay here I’m going to
do a deeper recon, see if I can clear out any watchers they might
have left.” Once the doctor grunted assent, Jill took off, angling
to the right at a crouch. She reported her intent on the radio.

Again she was crossing a large open space,
and her skin crawled as she remembered the hot stab of the bullet
in her spine. The sun burned bright overhead, heating the Virginia
air to its usual humid swelter. She was glad of the heat, for it
let her excuse herself for sweating.
It’s just the
temperature,
she told herself,
not fear. I don’t get scared.
Right.

Paralysis had reminded her about fear. That
some wounds the Eden Plague couldn’t just fix. She rubbed a phantom
ache in her back.

Inside the cooler forest she worked her way
leftward toward the north, searching for any sign of
reconnaissance, but amazingly she didn’t find any.
These people
aren’t really military
, she realized.
They’re just a mob
with weapons.

Turning to go back, she spotted a flickering
movement deeper in, cloaked in the forest shade. Freezing in place,
she opened her perceptions, defocusing, looking just for movement.
A moment later she found it, a darker patch with white eyes in
it.

The boy.

Immediately Jill sat down with her back to a
tree, placing her weapon on the ground and her hands on her knees.
Then she waved.

He came cautiously but confidently forward to
place himself in front of her, on his knees as well, about five
feet away.
Just outside of grab range. He’s careful.

“
Hello,” she said quietly.
“Can you understand me?”

The boy shrugged, said nothing.

Jill smiled broadly, and the boy matched her
expression. “Can’t you talk?”

He shrugged again, then shook his head
no.

So he can understand, at least some.
Wonder why he can’t talk. Not important right now.
“That’s all
right, I’ll talk for the both of us. Do you live alone? No? With
people then. Good people? Okay. Can these other people talk? No?
Interesting. Did you used to be able to talk? Yes. Did you all get
sick and lose your voice? Aha.”
Something a Plague did. Wouldn’t
be DP1, the Fredericksburgers got that and they can talk just fine.
Must be DP2 or some variant. The medical briefings said they
thought it would make people stupid and animalistic but not this
one or his people.

Jill picked up twig and smoothed a patch of
dirt. “Can you write? No. Used to before? Hmm. Can you read? No.
Could you read before? Yes…so it took away your ability to read and
speak, but not understand. Oh…were you Edens before? Do you know
what that means?”

The boy shook his head no.

Damn. Maybe they were Edens and that’s why
they ended up this way.
“Did anyone die when everyone got sick?
Yes? How many, a lot? Yes…about half? Yes.”
That’s it, then.
These people were Edens and got hit with DP2. Those that survived
lost some part of their higher functions but not all of them. The
kid seems bright enough.

“
My name is Jill. Do you
have a name?”

The boy thought for a minute, then shrugged.
He didn’t seem distressed by the lack.

“
I’ll call you Bobby, then.
How’s that?”

He shrugged, smiled.

Jill thought to herself that she would very
much like to meet Bobby’s people, but she had little time. Such a
meeting was also fraught with danger and uncertainty – what if his
–
tribe
, maybe – were not as friendly as he was? What if
they tried to keep her prisoner or make her someone’s mate or …who
knows what kind of society these people might have built hiding in
the forest?

But they might be able to help her. She
couldn’t be sure they had all lost the ability to speak or write.
Local knowledge of Fredericksburg could be invaluable. She made a
decision, reached for her radio. “Colonel, this is Repeth. I’ve
made contact with the boy we saw before. I’m going to see if I can
liaise with his people, maybe find something out.”

Bobby stared at her with big eyes, as if
trying to understand why she was speaking into the air.

“
Roger,” Muzik replied.
“But get out at the first sign of trouble. Remember all of our
people who need your help. You’re vital.”

“
Will do. Any luck with the
Navy or the Homies?”

“
Still can’t reach them.
We’re trying to rig a better antenna, but these tactical radios
aren’t made to go so far. Unfortunately the long-range ones are
scrap.”

She signed off, then slowly stood up so as
not to spook the boy. She held out her left hand, and Bobby
immediately took it. Her right stayed on her PW10.

He led them northeastward for perhaps two
miles, staying to the woods, avoiding open fields, crossing small
roads quickly, furtively. He seemed to know exactly where he was
going and what he was doing, and she speculated on the qualities of
a six-year-old that roamed so far from his home. Fearless,
self-reliant – but then, an Eden would have even less fear of
injury than a normal boy, and after the bombs fell, more reason to
search, scout and scavenge.

They finally broke out of the intermittent
wooded hills to see a stretch of neat old brick homes surrounded by
yards gone to ruin. Doors and windows were broken open, as if they
had been carelessly looted. She expected Bobby to go to a house or
building, but instead he crossed to a place by the woods where a
drain emptied onto a wild slope, obviously an outflow for the
built-up area. He led her into the four-foot pipe.

She stopped at the entrance, fished a tiny
light out of her pocket. She shone it down the dark tunnel but
could see nothing past about twenty feet. “All right, Bobby, lead
on. Hope you know what you’re doing.”

He tugged on her hand impatiently.

Five minutes and several tunnels later she
found herself in the mouth of an opening looking out upon a
village. That was the only thing she could think of to call it –
something primitive, like out of National Geographic.

The tiny town was built around the inner rim
of a hundred-yard-diameter bowl, with three other four-foot pipes
leading into it. She surmised it must be some kind of drainage
sink, where water from heavy rains would run and be absorbed into
the ground. They had converted it into a dwelling place, with a
well in the center, crude huts made of pallets and pieces of
salvaged materials, and the pipes as defensible gates. When winter
came it might flood, but until then it was defensible for the
tribe.

For a
tribe
it was, and right now they
were all staring at Jill in absolute silence. She stepped out of
the pipe and into the sunlight, still holding Bobby’s hand, and she
marveled.
Twosies. Sort of. Twosies plus Eden Plague maybe. Eden
Twosies. Probably no language, no names. This is what the aliens
want us to become, so they can Blend with us…be us.