Authors: Michael Logan
World War Moo (40 page)
“I'll be fine,” she said. “I just need ten minutes. Go get ready.”
Geldof hurried off after his mum, but halfway to the house something made him stop and look back. Ruan had left the table and was clambering onto one of the quad bikes. He sprinted back as the engine roared into life and got there just as the bike shot forward, forcing Ruan to swerve to avoid him. The vehicle tipped and she came tumbling off. When he reached her, she was lying with her face in the grass, her shoulders heaving.
“You can't help them,” he said quietly.
She flinched as he touched her shoulder. When she looked up, her face was contorted. “Don't you dare try to tell me not to go. You came for your mum.”
“And fat lot of use I was.”
“You're the one who told me to forgive them.”
“And you should. But that's different from trying to save them. If you go, you'll die. You're immune, which means everyone will bite and stomp on you until you're a bloody ruin.” He paused. “Sorry, I didn't mean that as a joke. I just don't think I could handle your dying.”
“I have to go,” she said.
As he looked at the set lines of her face, he knew he would probably have to wrestle her to stop her from setting off. That would only end with his lying on the ground with an ego and arse bruised in equal proportion and her zipping off on the quad bike. She was tough, no doubt, but nowhere near as tough as she would have to be. She could only fight off so many infected enraged by her purity until they overwhelmed her. Then it struck him. This immunity that would be her undoing was the key to making her stay.
“Think about it,” he said. “Your blood might hold the cure, and if your parents are cured you can be together again. If you go blundering into Edinburgh, that possible cure will die with you. Guaranteed. If we go north to safety first, then we can figure out who to contact about using your blood for a cure. They don't even need to take you out. We could leave a sample for them to pick up somewhere.”
Ruan fell silent for a while. “Do you really think it could work?”
Of course it wouldn't work. Once the soldiers were in and busy killing, nobody would take the chance of pulling out one immune girl. They already had all the data they needed on the virus. If they couldn't create a cure from that, they never would. He felt rotten for lying to her, for talking her out of doing what she wanted to do. In her place he would try the same thing. If her parents died, she would never forgive him. But, as his mum had said, she would at least be alive to hate. He really was Fanny in miniature.
“It's the best chance you've got of saving them,” he said, putting every ounce of his being into the lie.
“But what if I lose them? They're all I've got.”
“That's not true,” Geldof said. “You have us. You have me.”
He held out his hand, hoping that she wouldn't use it to pull him down, kick him in the nuts, and jump on the bike. Fortunately, she let him pull her to her feet. Her face was streaked with tears, which he thumbed away gently.
“We don't even know how long we'll survive,” she said.
Geldof leaned his forehead against hers. “Nobody does. We just need to make the most of the time we have left.”
“You're not like other boys,” Ruan said.
“Yeah, that's what all the girls say, usually as they edge away nervously.”
“No, it's a good thing.”
“I'm glad to hear it. Now, are you coming?”
Ruan nodded, and they walked off hand in hand into what little future they had left.
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General Carter was, to put it mildly, completely hammered when his phone rang. He, Zhang, and Kuzkin had been sitting in a dimly lit meeting room at the Pentagon since midnight, working their way through three bottles of vodka during a game of Tiger Has Come. They deserved the break. They'd spent days working around the clock implementing the reorganization to Operation Excision. Since General Zhang was already snoring in the corner and Carter could barely keep his eyes open, General Kuzkin was clearly going to win back all the money he'd lost from the round of golf and the game of dice, which at least had finally put him in a good mood.
Carter stared stupidly at the ringing mobile, far too drunk to consider picking it up. Eventually, Kuzkin reached across and answered. He grunted, put the device on speakerphone, and sat it in the middle of the table.
“Sir, there's been a development,” a voice said.
“I'll say,” Carter said. “I can't feel my legs.”
After a beat of silence, the voice continued, “We bugged a phone call about an hour ago, from Tony Campbell to Piers Stokington.”
“Who are they?”
“The leader of BRIT and his liaison, sir.”
“Ah. And?”
“Tony Campbell said, and I quote, âNo matter what you do, we won't resist. We won't fire off any nukes. We won't do anything.' He seems to be backing off from conflict, sir.”
Kuzkin raised two eyebrowsâwell, probably only one, but it was hard for Carter to tell considering the way the room was swimming. He raised his head from the table and slapped his cheeks hard. “Does it seem on the level?”
“Stokington seems to think so, sir. He got on the phone to his superiors. We thought it wise to block the call.”
“Good move. So they say they're going to back down. That's very accommodating of them. Sounds like a trap to me.”
“Indeed, sir. I should also inform you that Stokington is on the move. We think he might be driving over to tell his superiors in person. He seems quite agitated. From the things he's mumbling to himself, it seems likely he's going to try to persuade his superiors to have the attack called off.”
Carter motioned for another vodka and covered the mouthpiece. “The bastard's trying to sabotage our golf plans.”
“Your golf plans,” Kuzkin said.
Carter knocked back his drink and turned the glass upside down. “Your turn,” he said, before speaking into the phone again. “Nobody listens to the Brits. Then again, we shouldn't take the chance. We don't need to bother our politician friends with this. Take him into custody. What time is it?”
“Oh three hundred hours EST, sir.”
“Right. Remind me when Operation Excision is due to start.”
“Eighteen hundred hours EST, sir. In fifteen hours.”
“I might not be able to stand up, but I can still count.” He paused. “What time will that be in Britain?”
“Twenty-three hundred hours BST, sir. They're five hours ahead.”
“I knew that.”
“I also have to tell you that the satellites are still picking up growing population movements. We're not going to get as many of them in the first round as we thought, sir.”
“Nothing we can do about that. Proceed as planned. We'll mop up as we go along.”
He hung up and looked groggily at Kuzkin, who threw his glass of vodka down his throat. “Fine. You win. Enjoy it while it lasts. I'll take your money back off you at Gleneagles.”
His head dropped to the table.
“Hole in one,” he muttered, and fell into the deep, dreamless sleep of the young, the innocent, and the very, very drunk.
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Michael Logan
is a Scottish journalist whose career has taken him across the globe. He left Scotland in 2003 and has lived in Bosnia, Hungary, Switzerland, and Kenya, where he is currently based with his wife and two young children. His short fiction has appeared in various literary journals, and a (very) short story of his won Fish Publishing's International One-Page Fiction Prize. You can sign up for email updates
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Contents
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
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WORLD WAR MOO.
Copyright © 2015 by Michael Logan. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.