Toxic (45 page)

“You can handle things?” the biologist asked her, handing her the gun.

“Yeah,” Alva muttered. “It’s nothing more than another day in hell.”

She rubbed her nose, which provoked a suspicious glance from the young man.

“What?” she said, irritated.

“Nothing.”

“I got laid, but not in the way you imagine.”

Before her vehement tone, he preferred to move away and return to the movie theater to help Hector.

“It’s true, god dammit! He’s after my ass like a dog after a... forget it.”

She was sinking, Elaine estimated, noting her red eyes and strained features.  Putting her in an awkward position would only aggravate things and isolate her from the group.

“Is Masters still with the infected person?”

“His ex-wife,” she reminded her. “He has to say his goodbyes to her. It’s not easy.”

“This will never end, will it?”

“We have to hope so. Why not start tonight?”

All the nurse received as a reaction was a confused raising of her eyebrows. She explained the trafficker’s idea to her.

“Yeah, if they manage to reconnect those things again.”

“You’d be surprised. Hector seems to be gifted at mechanics.”

The diva’s dimples grew deeper and her mouth opened a few millimeters. The obvious display of a pleasant memory intrigued Elaine.

In the shopping mall’s parking lot, she found Alison playing with Dew. They had drawn squares on the ground and the girl was showing the autistic boy how to play hopscotch. The Asian followed the child’s orders. His forehead creased when his playmate, on one foot, lost her balance while picking up the pebble. Each time that she observed him, Elaine felt that his shady eyes belonged to a person older than his features let be known. Elaine went up to them.

“I think there will be a surprise after dinner.”

The announcement lit up Alison’s face as she fell onto her hands.

“Really?”

Then, a gunshot resounded. The girl jumped and ran to take cover in the arms of the nurse. It came from the restaurant. One moment afterwards, Masters came out. He exchanged a few words with Alva and then went in the direction of the boat at the quay on the other side of the highway. He came back five minutes later with a shovel.

Once night had fallen, Bruce and Elaine cooked canned beans with fish caught in the afternoon. The dinner, prepared on a gas camping stove, had a dreary feel to it. Masters declared that he would take first watch, which meant that he wasn’t planning to attend the screening. Nobody dissuaded him. Their heads lowered towards their plastic plates.

“How did you get the projector working again?” Elaine asked the trafficker, to bring up a less heavy subject.

Hector put down his fork.

“
Mi abuelo
 worked as a projectionist. I spent a good part of my childhood in the dark watching films and learning gangster language. English too.”

The revelation drew an emphatic look from the singer.

“I thought that no electronic machines were working?”

“The owner of the theater was an aficionado of old films from long before the invasion. He kept an antique 35mm, without numerical controls. I got my hands on two rolls, an old film.”

“And the sound?”

“I dug up a pair of speakers in the stock room,” Bruce shot in. “It won’t be great but it will do.”

“What’s its name?”

Hector looked regretful. “To be honest, I have no idea. There was no label on the box.”

They found themselves in front of the movie theater’s entrance kiosk shortly after the meal. While the Colombian finished preparing the materials, Alva smoked with Elaine. Bruce, Alison and Dewei were already in their seats. As for Masters, the nurse spotted his shadow on the roof of the restaurant. The artist brought her cigarette to her mouth. Her hands were shaking, Elaine noted, looking for signs that her state was getting worse.

“He won’t want to stay on the island. It’s where he killed his ex-wife.”

“Maybe. Where will we go in that case?”

“To Colombia?” Alva said sarcastically.

Elaine smiled and then put out her butt. “All right, let’s go watch this masterpiece of our culture which is going extinct. This may be our last movie.”

The two women joined their happy and rather excited companions. Only two of the lights were turned on, giving just enough light to lead them to their seats. The Colombian announced that the movie was going to start and that unfortunately there would be no ice during the intermission, to everyone’s amusement. Alison cuddled up against the nurse.

The curtain was already drawn. The screen, which was stained a sickly yellow, also had a few holes and a tear on the far left. All of a sudden, it became white, cleaned by the beam of bright light. Elaine was bewildered by the images of advertisements for products and a consumer society that no longer existed. She felt a sort of vertigo and even loss. Detergents, cars, online services... all of those things had disappeared. However, they remembered them clearly. Then came the movie trailers. The first one caused laughter.

“After the apocalypse in a city in ruins, the living dead come back, in even greater numbers than before,” the voice-over started. “Mortal Dance 2, when life hangs by a thread...”

“Fuck,” Alva grumbled. “He could have at least checked before dropping something like this on us.”

He had killed her.

Even though he knew that the humane act had freed her, it didn’t make it less of an execution. He had taken away all hope that she would become Carrie Anne Jasper-Boyd once again one day. The divorce had left its marks, but some feelings lasted forever. Even after the fires of passion went out.

Masters, sitting on a crate, grabbed the shotgun and got up, attracted by a suspicious movement. He though he saw a shadow crossing the four lanes running. The L-Ds didn’t run, he told himself. They weren’t able to. Maybe his tired mind was playing ticks on him. Or not. He decided to come down from his perch.

Once he was one hundred meters from the shopping mall, he stopped. He hadn’t seen anything abnormal. On his right, a street led to a large city on the edge of the sea. The left entrance led to the hospital parking lot. He listened closely. Calm reigned. The noise of civilization had disappeared off the face of the earth, he realized, in the middle of nowhere. The silence of the end of time upset him, as he was used to the humming of motors, the buzzing of air conditioning and sometimes the blasts of firearms. It was almost inhuman. Unreal. Masters remained motionless and listened for a few minutes and then got back on his way.

The entertainment wasn’t bad, Elaine thought. It was an old adventure film from the previous century. A story about time travel. When the tunnel of light disappeared, Hector informed them that it would take him about ten minutes to change the reel. Sprawled in her armchair, Alva groped around in her pockets searching for cigarettes.

“Shit!” the singer swore. “I don’t have any more.”

“Stay here with Alison. I’ll go find some more and take advantage of the opportunity to see how Masters is doing. I’ll be around five minutes. Not any longer.”

Elaine left her friends.

The lack of nighttime light didn’t bug her. The full Moon provided just enough light for her to find her way, but she still hurried in the direction of the clinic. The sea breeze brought moisture as well as a welcome freshness after the infernal heat of the daytime. The nurse crossed the hall and lit up her LED flashlight before starting down a shady hallway. They had saved some of these precious devices after their escape from Palm Beach. Getting to the dining room, she searched for the bag.

“Damn. I was sure I left them here.”

They had grouped together the cartons they had recovered from the Bahamas villa in a large red shopping basket. She remembered having placed it on the table near the kitchen.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” she heard behind her.

The masculine voice, with a serious famer-like quality to it, froze her blood. She turned around, taken off guard by a man dressed in combat clothes. He held the bag with one hand and an assault rifle in the other. She immediately though of Xavier’s band of junkies.

“This belongs to us now. And you too. We’re going to have lots of fun, right Hans?”

She felt a sharp pain at her neck and collapsed on the tiles.

The colonel froze on the sidewalk in front of the street that led to the entrance to the restaurant. The cracking noise seemed clear enough for him to not write it off as an illusion of his tired mind. He turned around in the middle of the crossroads which he had taken with Bruce upon arrival. Together, they had cleaned the trail that led to the dock where the boat was moored. He opened his eyes wide and his heart skipped a beat. He raised his 45 in the air and pressed the trigger twice. That was the signal that they had all agreed on before getting settled.

At the same time, Hector had found a way to play music.

Nobody heard the two gun shots. Alison heckled with the singer, who was happy to not feel obliged to talk with Bruce. Dewei watched them burst out in laughter.

“You see what I can do!” the young girl exclaimed, putting two fingers to her face to pull back her nose and spread her lips.

Alva played her game and repeated the gesture. “Owww,” she grimaced, moving her head from left to right.

Urgency burst into the room. The door slammed against the wall.

“Get out of here right now!” Masters yelled. “It’s full of L-Ds!”

T
he officer Kuhn made an important point by returning from his task before his rival and with a delivery of prisoners, which got him a whistle of approval from the Primark. The Kathari relayed his report to the control room. His troopers didn’t meet any opposition during their attack on the island, he explained, with the help of a three-dimensional diagram. In reality, they had lost time finding the group of humans, which was hidden away in a cave on the side of the volcano.

“A former lava tunnel,” the Kathari pointed out. “Getting them out of there was quite delicate and time consuming because of the sometimes narrow passageways.”

The details of the operation didn’t interest Jave, who was waiting patiently for the mercenary to get to the point before questioning him.

“Did you find a radio or a computer?”

Kuhn stiffened. His greasy and dirty coat of fur showed that he had taken the lead and opened the way. He would make a good leader, the emissary judged.

“Yes, Your Excellency. In pieces.”

He scratched his palm.

“The humans managed to destroy it before we reached them.”

Naakrit whistled. Jave closed his nasal vents. That was the objective of the mission, but the nature of the terrain really didn’t allow for the best results. The Primark waved his hand, signaling to the Kathari that he could take his leave. The mountain of fur disappeared right away.

“We still have a second chance,” Naakrit reminded him.

Kjet landed in South America as the first rays of the sun were covering the Andean summits in gold. Despite a more favorable environment, a flat desert, they had met a sort of local, well-trained militia. Of course, the troopers had won rather easily and without losses. However, during the battle, healthy products had been killed and it wasn’t because of the alien fire. The drones neutralized their targets without killing them.

On the central display, a fighter with a multi-colored face grabbed a knife and thrust it into his own chest.

“Seven deaths by suicide,” the second officer specified. “We captured five.”

Naakrit abstained from commenting. This wasn’t a first. Sometimes, humans preferred to die that way.

“No computers?” Jave questioned.

“No, Your Excellency, but we got a hold of a destroyed radio. It seems identical in all aspects to the one found on the frozen continent.”

“It will be up to our pre-tech expert to determine that. You have done a remarkable job.”

The lieutenant’s tongue slid along his lips and then retracted immediately.

Jave asked the chief of operations to display the sequences filmed during the combat. The Arthrosian dragged his shell to his post and divided the screen into as many rectangles as there had been botcams on the ground. The emissary sat down on an armchair and concentrated. He studied the images taken by the drones and those taken by the helmets of the mercenaries as well as the aerial view from the T-J’s approach.

“Don’t you want to interrogate the prisoners?” Naakrit said, surprised.

The Lynian told him that he was studying the issue. In reality, he was trying to rebound from the frustration caused by the failure to recover the computer. The machine probably held other coordinates. The humans displayed their intelligence: each one only had two or three references and never the complete list. The messages therefore went from one to another until their destination. The method was tedious but efficient on a security level. The good news was that such a chain needed lots of redundant links. Therefore, there existed many of these types of groups. A scene intercepted by a drone caught his attention.