Authors: David VanDyke
Tags: #thriller, #action, #military, #ebook, #war, #plague, #alien, #apocalyptic, #virus, #combat, #science fic tion
“
You’d be a dead volunteer
if you hadn’t.”
“
I know that. Doesn’t make
it better. Now I’m just going to be a good little boy. That’s how
you like ‘em, right?” Bitter.
Jill shrugged again, ignoring the jab, the
slam on Rick. “What’s done is done. Snap out of it, Marine.
Besides, you can always try to make the switch, but think of what
you’re giving up.”
“
What? Make what
switch?”
“
I’m sure they could
suppress the Eden Plague with enough antivirals to let the nanos
take hold and cure you of it. You’d heal and get all that strength
and speed but you wouldn’t be immortal any more.”
“
Screw immortality. It’s
overrated.”
“
You’d give up a thousand
years of life to be strong and fast?”
“
And be free of this guilt.
Die young, stay pretty.”
“
I’d say live long, stay
pretty. And the guilt will fade as your psychology adjusts. It’s
just your overactive conscience waking up.”
“
Okay, how about
‘It’s
better to burn out than fade away’
.”
“
That’s a crock. But if
you’re so hot for it, roll the dice, big man. It might kill you,
but whatever.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm, fed up.
“
Why do you have such
contempt for me?”
She kicked his bed, rattling it. “Because
even though you have your outstanding features, you’re still the
stereotype for all the swinging dicks that I’ve ever known,
beginning with my creepy stepbrother. Got to be a stud,
super-macho. And you see me, you want me. If you can’t have me, you
want me all the more. If you still can’t have me, you crave enough
power or glory or money or status to prove how wrong I was to
reject you.”
Gunderson’s mouth worked, as if chewing, then
he turned his head away. Jill watched him in silence for a time.
Finally he spoke. “You know what? I don’t have any counterargument
to that, and I hate it.”
“
Hate admitting the
truth?”
“
Exactly.”
“
Welcome to Edenhood. But
you know what that means?”
“
What?”
“
That deep down you
actually are a good guy. It’s not the Eden Plague that makes you
better. It’s your own conscience. The Plague just short-circuits
most of those lies you tell yourself. Makes you face the truth you
already know. Takes off the filters.”
“
That sucks. I think I’d
rather have my filters.”
“
Takes a real man to be
really honest. Only children can’t face reality. Only adolescent
boys try to screw every woman they meet.”
“
Who died and made you my
shrink?” he spat.
Jill shrugged. “You can send me away any
time.”
He stared at her for a long while. “You Edens
aren’t anything like I thought.”
“
Us Edens. And yes, you’re
right about that. We aren’t.” She turned and left him there with
nothing to do but think.
I’m not sure what he needs but he’s not
mine anyway. I can only do so much for people. After that, they
have to do for themselves.
Saddle up, Jill. Best horses and all
that.
***
Two weeks later US ground forces cautiously
pushed in from the west to find no organized resistance. Their
supplies and civil support troops were welcome, but the heavy
combat forces had nothing much to do except spread out and help the
medical teams enforce the inoculation protocol with desperate
speed. It was a race with the coming Reaper Plague, to see who got
there first. The alien probe could appear any day now.
They went farm to farm, house to house,
seeking any signs of habitation. Once they found people, they had
to persuade them to be immunized. Many times the people had to be
forced, or even shot with Needleshock, to get them to comply. Even
explaining that within just a few days the angel of death was
coming to call didn’t suffice. After all the country – and the
world – had been through, many just wanted to fort up and keep
everyone outside.
But if they did that, they would die.
Jill Repeth and her MPs worked tirelessly
bringing life to the people, always hoping to run across a sign of
Rick Johnstone, or of the Professor. They questioned everyone they
came across.
Of Rick, she found nothing but one frightened
Fredericksburg slave who said he had helped out with the
Professor’s computers, then had been “traded away.” Pressed about
what that meant, the man could only babble about “shadow men” and
“burn rooms.” He was remanded to the psych teams, and Jill kept
looking.
They tracked the Professor and a few of his
closest men northward into the death zone, where the only living
things hid too well and too deep for the overworked search teams to
dig out. Repeth pleaded to be allowed to go after him, but was
overruled. Everyone was needed to get the vaccines to the
people.
Almost she rebelled, considering desertion to
go find Rick on her own. Or if that failed, to hunt down Professor
Stone and demand some answers; but to do so would bend her sense of
duty past the breaking point. Once, she’d deserted an unlawful
regime for reasons she could live with, but this time it wouldn’t
be justified.
Colonel Muzik promised that as soon as the
Reaper Plague fell and had done its worst, he would let her pick a
team and go. Until then, her first priority was to get the vaccines
to the populace. Every inoculation meant one less to die. So she
threw herself into that work like an ox in harness, attacking the
task as if her individual efforts could significantly hasten its
completion. Here and there she picked up a clue, or a hint, of
where to look, and stored it away in memory.
Word of Fredericksburg’s fall spread to the
edge of the death zones, and most of the newly-formed city-states
capitulated as soon as General Alice Zimmer’s armored task forces
showed up. She’d said that a helping hand and a tank company got
much better results than a helping hand alone, and she was right.
General Zimmer became the popular champion of the reconquest, but
those in the know quietly spoke of a different hero, one who helped
the people, eschewed the spotlight, and traveled deeper into her
own darkness.
-42-
The last of the three Meme probes released
its reentry bodies above the Earth. Their courses varied little
from those that released the first two Plague bearers. Only this
time, the payload was not chaos, or oblivion, but death. The sole
goal of this Reaper Plague was to murder anyone that had not
already contracted a Demon Plague.
As throughout interstellar space, six hundred
sixty-five times already, the Meme plan was simple: weaken,
stupefy, and kill. If the aliens had their way, the only homo
sapiens left would be those prepared for Blending, and thus,
ready-made invaders.
Russia and China made valiant efforts to
intercept the biological warheads, but they failed. The Reaper
Plague rained down, and Death and Hell followed with it. As before,
Australia, South Africa, and sparsely populated areas were spared
at first, but eventually it reached everywhere. Spread on the
winds, in the water, by touch and carried by the insects and
vermin, it was cleverly designed for every animal to carry, for
every living creature no matter how small or large to be a
vector.
The vaccinated survived. Mostly.
Statistically. About eighty-seven percent. But thirteen percent of
six billion was still hundreds of million who died in agony. And
unvaccinated Edens might as well have played Russian roulette with
three bullets loaded. Their death rate approached one in two.
But the Reaper Plague was by far the most
virulent and deadly of the diseases and those without any
protection died within twelve hours as it ate them from within.
The world’s medical personnel desperately
tried to stay ahead of the infection. Sometimes they succeeded;
other times the Reaper stalked the streets. The world convulsed and
remade itself again as more than a billion human beings died.
-43-
Elise Markis gently shook Daniel, waking him
up from a sound sleep. “That can’t be comfortable,” she said gently
as he lifted his head off of his desk. “You have a paper clip stuck
to your cheek.” She reached out to peel it off.
“
Hi, sweetheart. What are
you doing here?”
“
Daily staff
meeting?”
“
Where’s Shawna?” He meant
her administrative supervisor, who usually handled the staff
functions.
“
She needed a day off, and
I needed to get out of the lab. And I wanted to see how you are
doing.”
He rubbed his face, then reached up to grasp
his wife’s hand. “I’m fine, let me just get some coffee.”
Cup in hand and brain in gear, he walked in
to find himself late and the Chairman’s large executive conference
room already full with over a hundred people. He knew it would be
more bad news, but he was numb.
One death is a tragedy; a
million deaths is a statistic. Old Joe Stalin was a crafty son of a
bitch.
“Sorry to be late, folks. What do we have? Military
intel first.”
A Free Communities Armed Forces colonel stood
up. “NSTR, sir.” This meant ‘nothing significant to report.’
“Everyone’s too busy with the pandemic to make any significant
military moves.”
“
The Aussies? The Orion
ship?”
“
Still on track,
sir.”
Chairman Markis nodded. He’d get more
detailed and specific intel from Cassandra if he wanted it.
“Medical?”
“
Approximately 26 million
more deaths this morning, as far as we can tally.” The doctor,
crumpled note paper in hand, looked exhausted. Perhaps it was more
from the horrifying statistics than sheer overwork. “That makes
about one point one billion, we estimate.” He paused, took a
breath. “The good news is the rate is slowing down. The disease is
burning itself out. It’s found almost everyone without
resistance.”
Chairman Markis nodded and the man sat down.
“Elise, what about the cure research?” He was interested himself in
hearing from her, unfiltered through the laboratory
administration.
Elise stood up and smiled wanly. “I have good
news, which is one reason I wanted to come make the report myself.
It’s very preliminary, but yesterday we had our first
post-infection Reaper Plague survivor.”
Scattered applause broke out and the Chairman
waved for quiet.
“
It’s tentative right now,
it might be a fluke, but the tests are encouraging. It’s hard to
reach infectees and administer the experimental treatments under
anything like controlled conditions. I have teams all over Africa
chasing infection hot spots and trying each serum batch out as they
become available. But I am convinced we will have something
reliable within weeks. I’m sorry it couldn’t be faster.”
More cheers and kind words poured forth from
those in attendance, and this time Daniel let it run its course.
Elise sat down with some embarrassment.
Eventually the Chairman rapped the table and
spoke. “All right, people, that’s good news but people are still
dying out there. Us healthy people have to keep plugging away at
our work, keep our spirits up, and do the best we can for humanity.
Now, who’s next? Logistics? What, powerpoint slides again? Make it
fast.” The meeting went on in true governmental fashion, grinding
through bureaucratic reports ad nauseum.
Later, in his office, Daniel and Elise Markis
embraced, pressing their bodies together with quiet warmth. “Good
to see you again, O wife of mine,” Daniel husked as he kissed
her.
“
Ditto, O Lord of the Free
Communities.”
“
For the nonce. When this
stupid Meme threat is over with, I’ll be happy to
abdicate.”
Elise pulled Daniel down to his office sofa.
“When is it over? Raphael said the scout ship is due in eight
months or so. Let’s say the Orion battleship handles that threat.
We have no way of knowing how long before the next one shows up.
What if it’s some kind of Death Star thingy?”
“
Thingy? What’s a thingy,
is that a scientific term?” He laughed, kissed her again. “Then we
build some X-wings, train some Jedi, and go blow it up.”
“
Come on, you know what I
mean.”
“
I’ve got a Red-Blue team
already working on the problem, and they are in contact with others
across the FC. I’m also pushing for a big open mil-sci conference
in the next few months to share research. You just focus on the
biological stuff, let me handle the politics.”
Elise stroked Daniel’s face. “Yes, my king, I
hear and obey.” She reached for his top button. “Got time for an
intimate meeting with your most loyal subject?”
“
I think I can clear my
calendar.” He reached for his phone and texted his staff to leave
him alone for an hour, while Elise locked the door.
-44-
Brigadier Nguyen’s captive American
nanocommandos now resided, if that was the word, in a
state-of-the-art underground complex. Months of experimentation had
dug out all their secrets.
Of course, they had experienced very little
pain as they lay helpless, usually unconscious, strapped to the
tables. Many of the laboratory staff were Edens, loyal to Australia
and the Free Communities of course, but also unlikely to stand for
anything that smacked of torture or inhumanity. Thus, Nguyen
decided, it was time to make a change, to move to the next
phase.