The Reaper Plague (3 page)

“
Yes, I’ll get the prime
Minister to look into it. Back to the topic at hand,” Smythe
grumped, “Who will control this warship?”

General Nguyen responded, “If we build it, we
in Australia will have a great deal of control, though the rest of
the world will want their piece. It might be a genuinely
international effort. That’s for the politicians to work out. But
we will build it, and the second, and the third, and so on. It will
increase our power and influence naturally. Australia, and
therefore this Committee, will take a place of preeminence.
Researchers will flock to us. Money will flow to us. The gratitude
of billions will lift us up.”

The nine around the table were silent for a
moment, each lost in thoughts of power and selfish advantage.
Finally, Smythe spoke. “It is an interesting topic for
consideration and assessment. Mister Ekara, would you please take
on the task of studying it and give us a preliminary report at next
week’s meeting.”

Spooky hid his satisfied smile.

***

The long-range transport landed at the Free
Communities Australian Air Force Base Richmond near Sydney after
nearly fifteen hours in the air. The parachutes the nanocommando
Huff and his remnant of the rogue Fortress Team had requested sat
unused, still strapped to their pallet.

A military truck with flashing lights led the
enormous airplane to its stopping place within an equally enormous
hangar. Ground crew placed chock blocks, and as soon as the engines
shut down the giant hangar doors slammed shut. A couple of dozen
troops, lightly armed, secured the inside perimeter of the hangar,
but only one man approached the personnel door near the rear, a
short Vietnamese highlander in a Brigadier’s dun-colored
uniform.

Spooky Nguyen.

Standing a few steps from the door, he waited
with his hands clasped behind his back, unarmed. Watching as the
door opened, he showed a hand signal to the crew behind him. Other
than that slight motion, he remained still.

A rifle-wielding and helmeted male figure
clad in midnight armor stepped into the plane’s doorway, looking
around. He jumped down, and then sauntered over to Nguyen, to stop
facing him from arm’s length. The two men were of a height, each
about five foot five, one squat and muscular, one slim and
erect.

The faceless man gained a visage by tipping
up his HUD plate, revealing exquisitely white teeth that contrasted
with his blue-black skin. He laughed loudly, a clownish thing, all
teeth and tongue. He saluted, mocking.

“
Chief Master Sergeant Huff
reports as or-
dered
, suh!. You must be Spooky
Nguyen.”

“
I am Brigadier Nguyen.”
The General’s left hand froze in the hand signal while his right
blurred out to seize Huff’s rifle, twisting it deftly out of his
hand. The weapon came to rest pointing at Huff’s groin, Nguyen’s
finger on the trigger. Somehow it was now set to full
auto.

Huff’s return blow, cat-quick, nevertheless
found only air as Spooky moved slightly, leaning away from the hand
just enough.

“
Stop!” barked Nguyen with
a voice that struck Huff like an invisible blow, that caused his
muscles to stutter and his mind to stumble.

Huff did stop, then deliberately relaxed, all
bravado. “That won’t even penetrate my armor,” he sneered.

“
But,” Spooky said calmly,
“your groin protection is soft, and it’s going to hurt like a son
of a bitch. When we spoke last by radio, you told me that you would
join my command.”

Huff twitched, itching to strike out again.
“So?”

“
Do you always speak to
your commanding officer in the familiar? I do not recall giving you
leave to address me so. Here in Direct Action, you will
earn
your privileges, no matter what advantages you were given by
injection.”

“
What if I decide to kill
you right now?”

Spooky smiled. “I took your weapon from you
without difficulty. There is more to personal combat than raw speed
and strength. If you tried, at best you would die with me, for I
have given orders to that effect.”

“
But I have the children.”
Huff did not seem quite as confident as before.

“
The only reason,” Nguyen
replied, “that I care about those children is to maintain good
relations with Daniel Markis, not out of weak-minded
sentimentality. So at most we have a standoff, but that will slowly
change. No matter what you do, no matter whom you threaten or kill,
this airplane will not leave the hangar and you will have no kind
of life or status in this nation unless I will it. You are only as
free as you are useful to me.”

Huff licked his lips. “Shit.”

Spooky wasn’t sure whether Huff’s exclamation
was disappointed or derisive. “Yes. Deep shit. You know my
reputation. I’ll forget about this childish boundary-testing if you
will uphold your part of the bargain and act properly from now on.
I’m a man of my word.” He reversed the rifle, handing it back to
Huff. “Are you?”

Huff looked around the hangar as if searching
for the catch, or a way out, but Spooky knew he would see nothing
unless he was very, very observant. Eventually he took the weapon
back, pointing it at the ground.

Nguyen nodded. “Come now, let’s get those
children off the plane. I suppose they’re cranky and eager to get
home.”

Huff chuckled. “Actually, they have been
having a blast. It’s all a big adventure to them, even eating
combat rations.”

Spooky made a slight face. “Disgusting. Come
on, Chief, talk to your men. Everything’s set.” He stayed in place,
left arm still behind his back, hand signal showing.

Huff nodded, appearing to accept their new
relationship with equanimity. Turning to leap lightly into the
personnel door of the airplane, he flipped hinged stairs out to
touch the ground. A few moments later all five Fortress Team One
commandos and their five young hostages stood on the polished
hangar floor in front of Nguyen.

Spooky nodded affably, raised a casual right
hand in greeting, and gave another signal with his hidden left.

A loud hum attacked their ears from overhead
and the commandos immediately dropped writhing to the ground. At
the same instant Nguyen leaped forward, propelling the two boys and
three girls away from the focus of the electromagnetic field.

Old age and treachery
, he thought,
beats youth and skill every time. As if I would honor my word to
child-napping scum like you.

From a nondescript doorway a line of men and
women scurried to the twitching figures, efficiently stripped them
of all their weapons and gear, then wrapped them in specially-made,
metal-free restraint suits. They injected powerful narcotics and
paralytic agents using nonmetallic syringes, then signaled for the
beam to shut down. IVs dripped drugs as they lifted their charges
onto five gurneys to load into unmarked medical trucks.

Other men and women, Edens selected for their
particularly kindly disposition, took charge of the children. They
checked them over, questioning them gently and eventually loading
them onto a minibus that took them to a teleconference with their
families.

Spooky supervised the evolution throughout,
deliberately putting on a faintly pleased expression for the
benefit of his highly efficient subordinates.
I appreciate Edens
for this kind of work – young in body, balanced in mind, eager and
efficient and hardworking. Mormons without the theology. I couldn’t
ask for better slaves, just as long as they never find out what
they are. The gods of my ancestors bless the human desire to serve
something greater – as long as I am that something.

He accompanied the five precious commandos,
his cybernetic breeders, on the way to the hastily-expanding
laboratory. Each was an endless source of self-replicating
nanobots, a ridiculously useful gift of shortsighted Tiny Fortress
officials. Nguyen’s careful prying conversations with Daniel
Markis, and his old friend and comrade Larry Nightingale, had
revealed the outline of the Americans’ foolishness. He mused that
he himself would never have let living, functioning nanocommandos
into enemy hands.
I would have installed fail-safe devices to
shut down, deprogram, or otherwise render the nanobots useless –
and I will. I will not make such mistakes, nor squander this
windfall.

Even as they drove, his industrious,
well-paid and happy Edens were improving the nanomachine research
facility that he controlled. In his jealously-guarded hand of
political cards, that was his ace in the hole.
The Committee
underestimates nano-cybernetics’ role in the coming conflicts.
They had relegated nano research – at his own suggestion – to his
Direct Action command. Naturally the cybercommandos fell within his
purview.

In return he had given up all but a
peripheral role in the development and production of Ekara’s first
space warship. The Committee believed in a division of power among
its members, and this was the price he paid. Still, he had always
preferred the blade to the bludgeon, and his ambitions were not, in
his own estimation, overweening.
Few powerful people have ever
been content with “enough,” but I shall be. Perhaps I should
instruct Ann to recite “remember, thou art mortal” to me at least
once a day.

---

The convoy rolled out into the countryside
well away from the Sydney urban sprawl. Nguyen observed the
bustling economy with satisfaction. Spared both the nuclear strikes
and all but a few cases of the Demon Plagues, Australia was
booming. Well-educated, carefully-vetted immigrants – many of them
from among the extended Nguyen clan – filled high-tech positions,
ensuring the nation remained at the forefront of scientific
progress. Given the state of the rest of the world, Australia had a
hundred applicants for every open space. Things were going very,
very well.

Spooky wondered when Murphy would show up to
spoil the party.

They drove past the busy heavy equipment
planting fence posts and sensors in a new, wider ring, before
passing through the older compound gate. Concrete trucks poured
their contents into molds full of rebar, heavy haulers dispensed
loads of wood and metal and prefabricated pieces. In a few weeks he
would have triple the floor space upon which to dig out the secrets
of the nanomachines.

The five cybercommandos soon occupied five
beds in a bay full of medical equipment. A squat, strangely
out-of-place machine pointed its electromagnetic array down the
full length of the room, the final backup if other control measures
failed. It was twin to the one that had incapacitated the subjects
in the hangar. Though it would ruin some of the more delicate
pieces of medical and scientific equipment if it was ever used,
Spooky was a careful man. Machines could be replaced.

Captain Alkina met him there, watching as the
technicians bustled about, preparing the helpless men for their
role as the incubators of the future. Nguyen felt her gazing at him
in adoration, and he touched her secretly, briefly, sending a
cascade of emotion through her body. He sensed her response and it
reassured him.

If he ever failed to detect that reaction he
would take special measures to safeguard himself, for it would mean
that the eventual, inevitable loss of her dependency had begun. For
now, though, she was utterly his.

Once he was certain that everything was
proceeding according to his wishes, he steered her into his on-site
office, locked the door, and proceeded to remind her of his
dominance, and of her submission.

Chairman of the Free Communities Council
Daniel “DJ” Markis looked up as his intelligence chief Cassandra
Johnstone entered his new fourth-floor corner office.

Its entire southern and western walls were
composed of deceptively tough armor glass composites. So clear were
they, she had the impression DJ could roll his desk chair backward
and off into space. She sniffed. Everything smelled new, of glue
and paint and plastic. “Nice. Can I have one like this?”

“
You know you can, but you
wanted something more secure.”

“
You should have something
more secure too.” She walked to the west wall to look out over the
grounds. A crew dug the future reflecting pool while a woman walked
her dog along the edge of the construction barrier. Near the next
building, lovers on a blanket under a tree ate their lunch between
bites of each other. She rapped on the glass. “This won’t stop
everything.”

“
It helps me think, the
feeling of open space. I grew up flying with Dad and it’s worth the
risk. Besides, who wants me dead now?”

“
I have a list of people if
you want it.”

Markis laughed. “Between you and Karl I’d
never leave the Bunker if you had your ways.” The Bunker was the
new, high-security lab they were building in the played-out mines
nearby.

“
Speaking of the Bunker, I
want your authorization to add a special annex. It will be
expensive but I think it’s necessary.” She handed him a folder,
which he looked over.

“
Containment and
confinement. For the commandos?”

“
Or people like them. With
that final plague coming in the next six weeks – I think ‘Reaper
Plague’ is catching on in the media – we might need it. I know I’m
not comfortable where we’re holding them right now. It’s
inconvenient to the lab and people that need to study the nanos and
their effects on human physiology. And they tell me there is a
small but real chance that the nanos in their bloodstreams could
escape to replicate elsewhere. Unlike the Plagues, they can
theoretically jump species. Do we really want nano-rats with
nano-fleas running around?”