Toxic (39 page)

“There exist threshold technologies that are immune to the effects of EMPs. Transmission apparatuses that don’t contain electronic or semi-organic components.”

“Where is it located?” Jave questioned.

The lieutenant slid a card onto the screen.

“Antarctica,” he mentioned with more than moderate enthusiasm.

Ice delirium, Jave though immediately, discovering the climactic data which accompanied a series of images taken from the space station. The reptilians were as irrationally afraid of it as the humans were of the infected.

“You want me to go in your place because of ice delirium?”

Naakrit refuted the second assertion. “No link with ice delirium. I need to leave the planet temporarily and Kjet is going to supervise the operations underway in Nairobi and Dubai. He will have lots to do during the next octo-diems. The majority of our teams are mobilized on the ground, but a recon of this site seems more than necessary to me. You will have an escort and drone support. They are currently en route.”

The missions were accumulating. Was personnel starting to lack? The emissary accepted.

“I need to prepare myself to confront these extreme climactic conditions.”

While the Primark whistled his orders, Jave retired to his quarters. To limit the risks and preserve the secrecy of his activities, he needed to erase all traces of his experiments. He was ensured of the protection of the information through an external physical device that was placed immediately in his pocket. Next, he unfurled his flexible screen. His signal awoke the drone posted on the roof of the tower, which took the body of the infected creature. As for the young woman, the same drone left her shortly afterwards in the middle of a road near the airport. Her instinct would drive her to join the mega-horde that circled the base. That way, she would be drowned in the mass of her new peers.

E
laine woke up disoriented with pain in her neck, watching the furniture that seemed to shirk away and the dim light announcing the arrival of the night. For a short moment, she thought she was in the break room for Jackson Memorial employees. A familiar face leaned towards her. The glow of the LED flashlights pointing towards the ceiling softened the diva’s features and veiled her swollen eyes. Reality chased away her memories.

“Is he up?” she asked between two yawns.

“No, Hector’s still asleep, but Masters wants to see you.”

The infected, she remembered.

She pushed off her covers and got up on her feet. The lack of electricity combined with the low light made even the simplest things complicated, such as finding the way to the bathroom in the entrance hall. She grumbled when she banged into the door.

When she got to arrivals, she spotted the colonel, who was preparing himself to announce bad news.

“The zombies are getting more and more numerous, just outside. They’re gaining strength and there are definitely more on the way,” he summarized with a worried look on his face.

Soldiers often dominated their fear by clenching their teeth as if they could contain it and keep it to themselves. She knew that this was a method that was designed to curb stress. It was a common practice among surgeons facing a difficult case.

“They’re still at the entrance, which leaves us a bit of time. I’m going to need it.”

“The situation will get out of control quickly.”

The serious look on the colonel’s face mirrored that of her father. The attitudes of the two men were similar, cloned by the educational mold of the army. Bruce pushed a table, lifted some chairs and grabbed the iron rod that blocked the entrance to the double doors to take a look at the evidence. She slid her head between the double doors.

Beyond the tangle of furniture, she made out agitated shadows in the darkness. The crowd and its cacophony surpassed her worst nightmares of a catastrophic day in the emergency ward. The creatures threw themselves at the barricade, which was showing signs of weakness. Bodies even tried to get through, crawling and twisting themselves into tiny openings. One of them spotted her. Its hands stretched out in her direction. The horde’s grunts doubled. She had seen enough.

“We need to make up our mind about leaving,” Masters declared, “and maybe sooner than planned. Out last line of defense won’t last long.”

“We can’t move Hector in his current state. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

The soldier scratched his neck. “I understand, but we’re not in control of the timing. The horde is getting bigger and the pressure is growing.”

The evacuation plan called for them to get back to the parking lot by going from behind,making it to the van parked under the overhang of the first entrance.

“We could at least climb up a floor,” Bruce proposed. “We’d be safer there.”

“We can’t get up the staircase with a stretcher. I’ve already gone through there and it wasn’t easy to do.”

“And if we clear it?” the biologist insisted.

The marine nodded.

“With two of us, it might be enough to move it all. We’ll still have to move the Colombian in the end.”

“I can help,” Alva volunteered.

Elaine nodded. “I’m going to prepare him for transport. It would be good to have a room ready for him up there. I’d also like to avoid abandoning the materials that you risked your life for just recently.”

Masters grinned. “You’re right. One more thing: the cleanup will make noise.”

“Enough of an uproar to awaken the dead,” Bruce added, with an amused smile.

His joke was received coolly.

Back at Hector’s bedside, Elaine took his pulse. It was still weak and his breathing was still a wheeze. She put the stethoscope to his hairy chest. His heartbeat didn’t have any anomalies. The lack of computer monitoring wasn’t really a significant annoyance. The old way of doing things required more attention and frequent checks. Learning to listen, see and feel often reminded her of one of her professors, for whom nothing could replace an examination done with his own senses. Also, these devices broke down so easily. Clearly, the advantage of electronics was in its real time monitoring of the patient, who could be checked at a glance.

She heard heavy noises. The racket covered the muffled grunts of the horde. Either to keep herself busy or to outwit her fear, she got about arranging the instruments that she was planning to take back to the boat. While she was at it, she organized the things to take upstairs. Other emergency situations were to be expected, if the past days were of any example, and she would need these precious materials. The chaos of the last few days... What was the date? Without a calendar or a glassphone, it was so easy to lose your sense of time.

The image of the alien worked itself into her thoughts.

The creature was interested in Dew, which meant that it knew and recognized his value. In that case, why didn’t it just take him? Elaine would have opposed it, of course. The act of resistance would have probably ended in her death.

And yet, she was still alive. She realized that maybe it wasn’t a miracle.

She heard the crash of a broken window as she re-counted the scalpels that were spread out along a sheet. Right away, she grimaced, wondering what her friends were doing. The evidence presented itself to her: that noise wasn’t coming from the back staircase. She interrupted her task and went into the hallway, which was dark despite the LED lights. The door drew her gaze. Half-open, she spotted the presence of a group of shadows projected onto the tiles. That could be anybody. Or anything. Elaine stopped beside the red-framed cabinet. The keys were hanging from the lock. Overtaken by doubt, she decided to grab the ax reserved for fighting fires. She walked with muted steps to the end of the hallway, her hands gripping the wooden handle. Its weight reassured her.

At the moment she was going to pull on the door handle, a gray-skinned hand with gnawed fingers came out of the small opening. Elaine stifled a shout of surprise and moved back a few steps, stumbling. She dropped the ax, which broke tiles in its fall. She heard the grunts. The gangrene hand felt around in the open space and then pushed the door panel. Its heels hit a chair. Elaine grabbed it and slid it to stop the door from opening. She pushed with all her strength without paying attention to the cracking of rotten fingers. On the other side, the creatures grunted in unison and started to bang the door, which she felt move. She wouldn’t hold out against the horde.

“Masters, I need help, quick!” she yelled, running back to Hector’s room.

The bangs continued, getting stronger and stronger. Nothing would stop the infected, excited by the smell of fresh flesh. She came hurtling into the room and took the two bags, which she threw onto the Colombian’s covers. She pushed at the front of the bed, which luckily had wheels.

“Shit!” she grumbled.

She pushed down on the security break, which released the wheels. Without wasting a second, she took Hector, who was still sleeping, out of the room. The bed banged against the walls and then crashed into the door frame, which she managed to cross panting, already exhausted by the effort. She didn’t see Masters or the others.

“Help!” she yelled once again.

She ran in the direction of the stairs. Bruce came running from the far end of the hallway. He bolted in the other direction to lend her a hand.

“They’re coming! Get going!” Elaine shouted without ceasing to push the bed, which banged continuously against obstacles.

Behind her, the door cracked and then the chair spilled over onto the tiles. Elaine heard it crash open as the rooms were suddenly filled with electrified wheezing and grunts. It could have been a wave of homeless drunks bellowing, stinky and angry. Her heartbeat to the point of bursting from her chest; she no longer felt her legs and her humid fingers slid along the aluminum. In a panic, she controlled Hector’s bed worse and worse. The biologist stopped with a horrified look on his face.

Elaine turned around.

The hurried bodies resembled a putrid wall on the verge of engulfing her, devastating everything in their way in the irresistible style of a human tsunami.

“Help me get him out of here!” she yelled.

Bruce shook his head. She didn’t understand what he was trying to say. Or maybe she didn’t want to believe him. She kept on pushing. The bed hit a closet. It seemed impossible to move, as awkward as an SUV without power steering. She forced it, pushing on the wheels with her feet. Bruce moved forward several steps. He hesitated. Elaine swore.

A gunshot fired. Then another. She recognized Masters’ shadow behind Bruce. The colonel was holding his gun and yelled an order to the biologist, who got back on his way.

“No!” yelled Elaine. “Don’t leave me here!”

Once again, Bruce shook his head, apparently undecided or annoyed, and then raised his hand to the right to show her something. Automatically, she turned to where he was pointing.

The stock room. The only refuge possible in the heart of chaos.

A
s the T-J transported him and two troopers towards the white continent, Jave wondered about the antidote, if he could even consider it one. Maybe he only had a test sample, a dead end. However, the experiment hadn’t been a complete failure despite its appearance. It wasn’t just a question of point of view. In it, he could see the beginning of an end. That wasn’t enough. The situation required a complete and functional solution, applicable to all of infected humanity. In the even that…

Bundled up in his PAS, he observed the Kathari in front of him. His acolyte, a Squil, was piloting the ship. The massive, hairy creature took up almost two seats. His bulbous eyes in the middle of a hairy forest resembled black holes surrounded by their ochre accretion disks. He remembered having seen another one of them back at the Dubai HQ when he arrived. Jave asked him the question.

“He’s Ry,” the Kathari responded. “We belong to the same clan. I’m Kuhn.”

Like many of the numerous species in the three galaxies, clans constituted a fundamental unit, the base of society with all of the complex relationships between its members.

“Did you join together?” the Lynian inquired.

“
Haj!
” he grunted.