Toxic (21 page)

“Dew!”

She had already seen a specialist at the hospital try to get the attention of a young autistic boy in the same way. According to him, everything worked visually, but that didn’t seem to be the case with the Asian, who looked her up and down without reacting.

“Dew! Look at me!” she yelled once again. “Look at me!”

The visual contact she established didn’t produce the expected effect. He held his arms at his sides. The grunts came out of the grass, which danced with the movements of the soulless predators. She imagined the contorted creatures with their mangled limbs pushing through the shrubs, excited by the smell of fresh flesh.

“Dew!”

He seemed capable of understanding reason. In his way and thanks to his notebook, he communicated with her. Why did he remain like this? Elaine closed her eyes.

“You can’t do this to me,” she murmured.

The choice was clear. Terrible, but clear. Elaine hit the fence with her fist.

“Fucking son of a bitch!”

She threw her leg over and let herself fall to the ground.

“If you want my opinion, Bruce, I think that we should plan on staying here. At least for a few days.”

The
gringo
was making an obsession of it, Hector told himself. Not too bad when all is said and done. This place didn’t lack charm and they all seemed to need to catch their breath. Sitting on the couch in front of the one he was on, Alva shot him an understanding look.

“There are cans in the cellar. We can also make trips into town. As for fresh products, thing look good around here,” the biologist continued.

Before the invasion, the area had been known for large fishing competitions organized by rich hobbyists. The luxury yachts had disappeared, a fate which they imagined to have been formerly reserved to sharks, marlins and other predators on the reefs.

The artist had a relaxed and almost serene look to her. She possessed a grace pinned to her body, capable of making an impression on men. Even without tricks or makeup, she filled the space and attracted attention. Of course she was a junkie, Hector remembered. And the saying had stuck to him since his first fix: once a drug addict…

Alva opened the pack of cigarettes. The owners had hermetically sealed cartons on the shelves in a cupboard. Maybe the nicotine calmed her nerves or anxiety. Would that be enough?
Probably not
, he told himself.

On his boat, the four hundred kilos of pure happiness was a treasure. In terms of business, it was clearly no longer worth anything. In reality, everything depended on the end of the chain and on the final customer because in the end, they fed the circuit with their money. The system had collapsed, but potential consumers still existed. A woman like Alva, even though she had no money, still had the ability to pay.

He looked at her long legs and her thin waist as she walked to the kitchen to smoke. Bruce had the same reflex as him. That didn’t bother the trafficker. Unlike him, the young guy didn’t have anything to buy the favors of a star. Regardless, he had been right about one thing: a recreational pause was needed.

Elaine caught herself, her feet sinking into the sodden ground. She jumped in front of Dewei, the shovel handle in her hands. Masters’ 45 would have come in useful here, she thought at once. It was too late to berate herself for a decision taken due to her hatred of firearms. She had patched up gang members and their victims by the dozens.

“Why don’t you want to climb up that damned fence?” she said angrily, swinging the stake under her nose.

The nearby wheezing announced the creatures’ imminent arrival. She weighed up her improvised lance. It would allow her to skewer one or maybe two. The crest of the shrubs was only a few meters away.

Six infected people came out of the miniature jungle. They didn’t stop. On the contrary, obeying their animal instinct, they followed their trajectory, whipping towards their cornered prey. Elaine didn’t manage to scream or even move. Paralyzed by the terrifying spectacle of their animated corpses with putrid mouths, she remained with her back to the Asian, who she hoped to protect from the first attacks.

“I’m sorry, Dew.”

Dew finally reacted. He handed her a piece of paper. The incongruity of the gesture surprised her. Just as she was planning to fight the creatures a few steps away from her, she understood the quickly scribbled words.

We’re not alone
.

What did he mean?

In front of her, she saw a red baseball cap. She remembered having seen it inside the house. The disfigured teenager had lost his humanity. She tightened her grip on the handle, ready to hit him without remorse. It was her or him.

Suddenly, an explosion of blood obscured her vision. She felt the flesh splatter onto her skin. The adolescent had transformed into a pink cloud right in front of her. The same thing happened to the others, burst into crimson clouds which sprayed the ring of vegetation surrounding them. The strangest part of it was the sound, like a shovel digging into clay followed by a dry cracking noise, that of the bodies collapsing.

Several seconds went by before she dared move. She wiped her face with the back of her sleeve. She narrowed her eyes in front of the unexpected appearance. The thing measured more than two meters and had a sort of blade with something similar to iron knuckles. Its purple and black metal armor shined in the darkness.

“Holy fuck. What the hell is that?” she murmured.

Instinctively, she held in the response. Nobody she knew had seen aliens, except for maybe Masters. In reality, she didn’t know what they looked like. Of these foreign conquerors, they only saw drones. These machines tracked men and women day and night. What become of the prisoners, nobody knew. According to the rumors that she had heard when embarking on the yacht, the aliens sent them somewhere in the Middle East. They weren’t interested in the infected.

This one here seemed to be made up of a pair of legs, two upper limbs and a head, to judge by the shadow that sheathed its strange blade. Its hands had three fingers.

The mechanical creature advanced several steps without making a sound, which increased its aura of power that nothing could hamper. The alien pointed at them.

“What do you want?” Elaine stammered.

He pointed at Dew.

“Him?” she asked, surprised.

As confirmation, he maintained his arm in the direction of the Asian. Elaine put herself in front of him, armed with her resolution and her stake, her knees trembling.

“You’ll have to kill me first,” she declared in a shaky voice.

Her hands were shaking. Sweat mixed with the blood that covered her dirty face under the falling rain. A foul smell saturated her nose. She remained in the way of the metal monster. The creature could have vaporized her or sent her flying in the air with one simple movement to give her what she was asking for. Instead of that, it expressed itself in a synthetic voice in perfect English.

“He survived the infected. How?”

Taken aback, she hesitated. Surprise mixed with fear. She opened her mouth a few times before managing to say anything.

“I… I don’t know.”

Dewei slid to her side. He was writing. They were on the verge of dying and he was writing a note. What was not computing in his head? Against all expectations, he didn’t offer his writing to Elaine.

“No!” she protested, seeing the words
Site B
written hastily.

Dewei handed his notebook to the alien. She wanted to grab a hold of it but thought better, conscious that nothing would stop the alien from recovering it. The creature bent its legs to grab it. The notebook resembled a yellow post-it in the palm of a steel titan.

“I won’t kill you.”

The Asian nodded. Elaine, petrified, didn’t dare respond.

“There’s a cure. A way of saving your people. Find Site B before the others get there.”

With these improbable words, the metal giant flew into the air with the grace of a feather lifted by the wind. Its armor shone for a brief moment before disappearing, swallowed by the black clouds.

T
he T-J circled above a sea of clouds. The cargo ramp lowered to welcome the emissary. Once the repulsors were cut, the PAS landed softly and released him. Jave immediately went towards the cockpit. He synched the information links with the marauder drones. The Dubai HQ had lent him the last few devices available on the east coast of the former United States. The others were heading to be deployed in the direction of the Great Lakes region. Their electronic brains conformed to their new orders: tracking the group of humans at a distance.

Luck had been on his side when one of the drones had spotted their arrival at one of the neighboring archipelagos. They imagined themselves to be safe on these tiny islands isolated from the open sea. At first reason was maintained. They were crashing into a reality which was as terrible as it was strange: the contagion had immediately gone worldwide, breaking out simultaneously in hundreds of households across the whole planet. It hadn’t spared these natural sanctuaries which were home to vacation infrastructure that was at times spectacular and which was appreciated by the visitors that came there in flocks to enjoy the sun like reptiles searching for heat. Since then, these retreats, strewn about the oceans, had been transformed into mortal traps.

On the screens, he made out the infected walking around the island that the humans though to be the safest on the planet. It didn’t matter. Jave guessed that they would set out again very quickly. The survivor, the black-skinned man, the young girl and the determined woman that he had saved formed a promising group. They also had a means of moving around, albeit slow, but capable of covering long distances discretely. The furtive features of the boat would likely pose a problem for the drones.

That was his best chance. His internal ability told him that he wouldn’t find anything better. Not so quickly in any case.

Jave took a device out of its sheath. Placed in the hollow of his hand, the medallion projected an ethereal volume. His three fingers composed a message inside the upside down pyramid, outlined by moving edges.

“Contact established.”

The bubble disappeared at the moment of the sending. After a few moments, another appeared. The confirmation of reception also included an order to continue the mission as planned. The pyramid went out and the emissary closed his hand once again.

The T-J landed on the HQ platform a few octains of minutes later. A Serkratian technician with an insectoid look, to whom he gave a sign to put away his PAS, welcomed him at the foot of the ramp. The Lynian then took the elevator tube.

Upon entering the operations room, Kjet came up to meet him. Naakrit’s lieutenant was supervising activities in the Primark’s absence. The reptilian seemed worried to him. He kept his tongue inside his mouth, a sign of anxiety of his species. The four closed claws were another sign. The officer pointed to a space separate from the muffled environment of the command center.

Before the window opening towards the urban panorama, he communicated his superior’s orders, who had ordered him to wait for his return instead of going to Nairobi. All of a sudden, Jave wondered if the mercenaries had intercepted his secret transmission. Even though it was small, the probability of an interception existed. As a Lynian with his talent, he assembled these types of micro-disruptions in reality, as the name went. He knew what to watch out for. Each time that he placed his hand somewhere, he left a print on the succession of events. He modified them.

“Did he tell you the reason for this change?”

“
Nijt
.”

Jave watched the reptilian, loyal to the last. He had joined the company at its creation. His octans of service justified his role in the foreground within the organization. Naakrit didn’t hesitate to confide in him for important tasks including those which likely required him to take drastic measures. Even though he carried out his tasks with the required efficiency, as the mercenary he was, this didn’t mean that he approved of them, in particular when his actions had an effect on his own future. Did he also doubt, like the Sybarian, the promises of his boss?
Difficult to say
, Jave determined, giving him a brief salute before going back to his quarters. The situation was developing slowly, very slowly, but in his favor. This wasn’t the time to take risks.

Kjet entered the operations room. He passed a row of virtual spheres, all of them occupied by troopers charged with controlling drones or verifying the information on the ground. He stopped before a desk where he placed his hands. The green features of his commander appeared.

“The Lynian has just arrived.”

“Perfect. You didn’t tell him anything?”

“
Nijt
.”

The Primark crossed his claws.

“We might have to rid ourselves of him.”

Kjet bowed. “That seems premature to me. He’s the Combinate envoy. They will demand answers.”

“Protected as he is, he’s not additionally protected against an accident. He’s going around the planet and to dangerous places. He’s choosing to expose himself. I can’t be held responsible.”