Pandemic Page 17

  His face wrinkled into a frown, a steady wince of pain.

  “It hurts,” he said. “Bad. I think they’re moving to my brain. Margaret, I don’t want to lose control again.”

  They: the crawlers that were already working their way up his nervous system, heading for his head. There, they would spread their interweaving tendrils. They would take him over, change him, and destroy who he was in the process.

  “You won’t,” she said. “They won’t have time.”

  And now her gift to him, his reward for standing tall in the face of absolute destruction, for being the one person willing to fight no matter what the odds.

  She heard a growing whistle — the sound of an incoming artillery shell. A small shadow appeared on the ground between their feet, a quivering circle of black.

  Perry stared at her. His smile returned, a smile of exhausted disbelief.

  “Holy shit,” he said. “Are you nuking me?”

  “Yes,” she said, because there was nothing else to say.

  The shadow-circle grew larger, engulfing their feet, then spreading until they were both standing in its shade.

  A wet laugh joined Perry’s corpse smile. “Dew said I’m like a cockroach, that nothing can kill me. I don’t think physics is on my side this time, though.”

  He was dead twice over, yet still he cracked jokes, for her, a last effort to lift some of the blame from her shoulders.

  Perry coughed. Little hatchlings shot out of his mouth, fell to the ground. They righted themselves and sprinted away, out of the shadow and into the light.

  They wouldn’t escape. Nothing would.

  Perry wiped his mouth. His blue eyes bore into her.

  “How long do I have?”

  “About fifteen seconds,” she said.

  Then she started to float away, leaving Perry behind.

  He looked up. “No shit? That’s kind of fucked up.”

  The bomb’s shadow spread faster, throwing the buildings on either side of the street into deep blackness. Perry stood in the shadow’s center, his blond hair and blue eyes still as bright as if the sun reached down and set them alight.

  Margaret floated higher. Perry looked smaller and smaller.

  He cupped his hands to his face and shouted: “Margo?”

  Shooting up into the sky, she shouted back: “Yes?”

  She saw the bomb now — as big as the city itself, a cartoony thing that would crush Detroit by impact alone even if it didn’t detonate.

  Perry drew in a huge breath, and screamed his final words.

  “Thank you for saving my life!”

  The giant bomb exploded. The mushroom cloud rose up far beneath her feet. It wouldn’t reach her. She wouldn’t feel the effects.

  She was safe: it was only other people who died.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  • • •

  Margaret Montoya opened her eyes. She’d failed Perry. She’d failed Dew Phillips. She’d failed Amos Braun.

  She sat up in bed, trying to remember where she was. A bed, clean sheets that smelled faintly of bleach, heavy blankets … her room aboard the Carl Brashear.

  A nap, a short nap that had done nothing to ease her exhaustion.

  She wanted to watch the diver go into the Los Angeles, but she could barely move. Maybe it was time to take Tim up on his offer for Adderall. She’d had four hours of sleep in the last twenty — every hour of sleep was a lost hour of analysis and research.

  Margaret pushed herself out of bed. She could watch the diver’s efforts while she waited for the initial results from Tim’s yeast modification. Saccharomyces feely. That was the answer, it had to be.

  The hydras were a fascinating development, but largely unknown. What effect would they have on a living host? They might wind up being as bad as — or worse than — the crawlers that they killed. Tim had found his living hydras inside pustules on Walker; that was one way the crawlers spread. Would the hydras also puff out, microscopic bits floating on the air until they landed on a new host?

  If so, the hydras could become an airborne contagion.

  Tim’s yeast, on the other hand, carried no such threat. He’d ramped up the growth rate somehow, making it reproduce two to three times faster than most yeast. It wasn’t contagious — and even if it was, it was just yeast with a piece of the hydra’s coding: no threat of any kind. Still, she had sent Murray a message to look into the Spectrum Health HAC study. If one participant in that study produced hydras, other participants might as well. She couldn’t afford to overlook any possibility that could provide a potential weapon.

  Margaret stood. She felt old, she felt creaky. She’d watch the diver, then maybe take one of Tim’s pills.

  Tired or not, the work wouldn’t wait.

  POSITIVE THOUGHTS

  Tim Feely walked down the white corridor, toweling off his hair as he went. Amazing what a shower could do for the soul. His flip-flops flapped against the floor. He wore a thick, white, terrycloth robe, a gift from Captain Yasaka. That poor, poor woman; she commanded an entire ship’s worth of sailors, day in, day out, but sometimes a girl just needed someone else to take charge.

  Tim wondered if Margaret Montoya was that kind of woman in the bedroom. Or did her boudoir policies stray into the dictatorial realm? He certainly couldn’t see Clarence Otto as the kind of guy who let his lady boss him around. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Margaret was too aggressive for Tall, Dark & Don’t Threaten My Manhood. If Margo wanted to call the shots, that wouldn’t bother Tim in the least.

  If the ladies liked it, Tim liked it — a simple philosophy that opened up a world of possibilities.

  Could he land Margaret? Why the fuck not? He felt on top of the world, he felt like a king. He’d isolated the hydra’s catalyst-producing gene sequence and inserted it into his fast-growing yeast, which was now happily diving away. It remained to be seen, however, if the modified yeast actually produced the catalyst, and if that catalyst actually worked.

  From everything he’d seen so far, it would. Which meant — Tim Feely might very well have just saved the world.

  And if that don’t get you laid, nothing will.

  Tim entered the briefing room. Margaret was sitting in one of the room’s ten theater-style chairs. Clarence stood off a bit to the side. He’d lost the suit coat, thank God. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt. A T-shirt that was too tight, in Tim’s opinion. Well, maybe Margaret was tired of all those muscles. Fuck but that Clarence dude was put together, though.

  Margaret saw Tim enter, raised her glass of wine. “Doctor Feely. I found the liquor cabinet and helped myself. You don’t mind?”

  He gave her his best seductive smile. “Don’t mind at all.”

  Clarence saw the smile. He scowled.

  Tim dialed the smile back a few notches, from leering to slightly-more-than-friendly.

  Margaret gestured to the room, clearly hoping to change the subject. “This theater is really something.”

  Tim could imagine how the room took newbies by surprise. In addition to cushy seats that faced a ten-foot screen, there was a fridge full of beer, plenty of snacks, and a liquor cabinet packed with the best liquid treats a boy could buy.

  “Don’t forget there was a full staff here for years,” he said. “Uncle Sam wanted his pet scientists to be happy.”

  Clarence let out a snort. “Yeah. And the people who actually do the work of running the ship? What do they think of your little private theater?”

  Tim waggled his pointer finger side to side. “Please to no-no-no,” he said. “The entire science module is off-limits to the rank and file. I doubt people who hot-bunk would appreciate we brainiacs living in the lap of luxury.”

  “Right,” Clarence said. “That doesn’t bother you at all?”

  Tim walked past Clarence to the liquor cabinet. The half-empty bottle of Adderall was right on top. Correction, half-full: Tim was an optimist, after all. He opened the cabinet and pulled out
the bottle of Oban 2000.

  “Clarence,” Tim said as he poured a glass, “it’s not my fault other people didn’t get a doctorate.”

  “No, I suppose it’s not,” Clarence said. “Just like it’s not your fault that you get to live in freedom.”

  This guy had to have an American flag tattooed somewhere on his body.

  Margaret waved a hand. “Boys, don’t rain on my parade with your political differences, okay? If Tim’s yeast culture takes off, we may very well have this thing beat. I’m in the mood to enjoy my break, because soon we have to get back to work.”

  Tim nodded. “I agree. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”

  Margaret shook her head. “I’m talking about tonight, Doctor Feely. As soon as we watch the diver enter the Los Angeles, we’ll get back at it.”

  Tim had a moment to hope she was joking. The look in her eyes said she wasn’t.

  “Ah,” he said. “I see.”

  Good thing he had enough stimulants to go around. Better living through chemistry.

  He sat in the chair next to Margaret, feeling Clarence’s stare on the back of his neck as he did. Tim sipped his Oban.

  The image on the big screen showed a cone of dimly lit water, featureless save for an occasional bit of flotsam that glowed like a tiny star in the diver’s light, then gone as the camera passed it by. Numbers played out at the bottom of the screen, showing the descending depth: eight hundred feet and counting. Another hundred feet or so, and that light would play off the wreck of the Los Angeles.

  Up until the shit hit the fan, Tim had spent most of his time in this very room, watching downloaded movies and TV shows, playing video games, just generally dicking around and wasting taxpayer money. What else had there been to do? Sure, he’d worked on his yeast, trying to engineer a genome that would successfully produce a little-understood cellulase. Trying, and failing; he’d had no crawlers, no samples, nothing to go on but a mass spec analysis that clearly wasn’t 100 percent accurate. He’d collected a six-figure paycheck, come up with bullshit to put on his weekly reports and generally kicked back and lived the good life of a government employee flying under the radar.

  Now, however, he had something he could use: an actual cellulase, and plenty of it. On the one hand, it made him furious to see how close he’d been to getting it right. On the other, if the new line of Saccharomyces feely succeeded, his work could make the human race immune to a disease that made the black plague look like postnasal drip.

  Tim raised his glass toward Margaret. She frowned, but begrudgingly reached out her wineglass and clinked in a quiet toast.

  Like him, she had showered. Her black hair hung heavy and damp, but she looked fantastic. When she’d arrived, she’d been drowning in a bizarre notion of self-pity. Well, no more — her eyes blazed with intelligence, with life, and a persistent smile hovered at the corners of her mouth. She looked good even inside a BSL-4 suit; outside of one, she looked fantastic.

  Tim could see more than a few lost weekends with that one. As long as Captain Yasaka didn’t find out, of course. It was always a good rule of thumb not to incur the jealousy of a woman with keys to the weapons locker.

  “I should make popcorn,” Tim said. “You guys want popcorn?”

  Neither Margaret nor Clarence responded. Their attention stayed fixed on the screen.

  The number at the bottom of the screen ticked up to 850.

  “The diver will be there soon,” Tim said. “We’ll get a look at this debacle.”

  “It’s not the diver,” Clarence said. “This is from a camera mounted on the nose of a Blackfish 12, the navy’s high-end UUV. The ’Fish is going down ahead of the diver to get a fresh rad reading.”

  Tim drained his glass. He thought about asking Clarence to fetch him a refill, but he wasn’t really in the mood to get his ass kicked. He started to stand.

  Margaret put a hand on his arm. “Doctor Feely, you’re not getting another drink, are you?”

  Tim stopped halfway out of his chair. “Uh, the thought had crossed my mind.”

  She shook her head. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t. We go back into the lab in a little bit.”

  Tim sighed, sat down and watched the screen. The Blackfish’s lights played against a far-off, ghostly image. Finally, the submarine.

  His hand tightened on his empty glass. The submarine … Walker, immune …

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “We think Walker was immune, right?”

  Margaret nodded.

  “So then why did she sabotage the sub’s engines? Why did she cripple it if she wasn’t a psycho?”

  “The answer is simple,” Clarence said. “Maybe not for someone with a doctorate, but simple enough for a veteran.”

  Tim turned to look at Clarence, saw the man’s self-confident smirk.

  “Do tell, Agent Otto,” Tim said. “Edify me with your worldly wisdom.”

  “The disease wants to spread, it always wants to spread,” Clarence said. “If the captain was one of the Converted, he’d head for the nearest major port so he could spread his infected crew among a dense population.”

  Margaret’s eyebrows rose. “Chicago. They were heading for Chicago. Candice stopped them.”

  Clarence nodded. “Lieutenant Walker knew her duty. She knew what she had to do to protect the country.”

  Tim huffed. Clarence was right, obviously, which Tim found annoying.

  Patriotism could drive people to sacrifice themselves. That, too, was damn annoying, because it flew in the face of survival of the fittest. Stupid people could be convinced to die for the greater good. The greater good was always someone who would live on because of — and long after — that sacrifice. Soldiers die, generals retire.

  On the screen, the wrongly angled sail of the Los Angeles loomed into view. Lights played off more flotsam. Tim knew a lot of that detritus was composed of sailor bits, bodies either torn apart by the torpedo strike or picked at by scavengers.

  The number 688 glowed a bright white.

  The PA system clicked on: a too-loud, mechanical voice that broke the moment’s magic.

  “Doctor Feely, line one for Captain Yasaka. Doctor Feely, line one for Captain Yasaka.”

  Tim glanced at the wet-haired Margaret Montoya, felt like he’d been caught at something — did Yasaka know he was ogling his fellow scientist? He stood and strode to a phone mounted on the wall. He lifted the handset, as always marveling a little at the archaic cord that ran from it to the wall unit.

  He pushed the number “1.”

  “This is Doctor Feely.”

  “This is the captain.” Yasaka’s voice. Not the voice that on some nights said take me, or on extraspecial nights said please, Daddy. This was her command voice.

  “Captain, how can I be of service?”

  “Are you with Doctor Montoya?”

  “I am.”

  “A petty officer just killed two of my crew,” the captain said. “He tested positive, as did two other men who were bunking near him. We have a total of three positives.”

  Tim’s body went ice cold.

  “Three … positives?”

  “So far,” Yasaka said. “Security will deliver these men to cells in your lab. I suspect they won’t be the last.”

  DIVER DOWN

  Clarence sat in the lab’s control room module, looking down at Tim and Margaret who were working away in their big-helmeted suits.

  They’d rushed out of the extravagant theater, desperate to get back to work. Clarence had watched them both pop some pills — apparently, now wasn’t the time to let fatigue get the better of them.

  As for himself, he’d suited up and overseen delivery of the new prisoners: Orin Nagy, the killer, as well as Conroy Austin and Lionel Chappas, both of whom had tested positive. Cantrell now had company.

  The deck crane had lowered the men down to the Brashear’s big side airlock, accompanied by six biosafety-suited guards. Clarence had watched everyone go through the bleach-wash decon proces
s, watched the infected men be placed in clear cells, watched the guards reenter the airlock for their final decon.

  The side airlock was the only safe way to bring the infected into the holding area, but it was also needed for the submersion tests on Clark’s and Cantrell’s suits. The first test, the pressurized fall test, hadn’t detected any leaks; if the suits had holes, those holes were microscopic. Margaret didn’t seem that concerned about it, but Clarence would still push Captain Yasaka to do the submersion test. With Yasaka’s crew redoubling efforts to find any infected, the best Clarence could hope for was to see the test run tomorrow night, or, at the very latest, the following morning.

  The mood had changed, to say the least. In the extravagant briefing room, he’d sensed Margaret’s subdued elation — she thought they had the infection beat. Not today, of course, but so soon that a few more weeks would make no difference. Now, however, the infection had spread to the general crew. Three positives would quickly multiply. Yasaka’s best efforts couldn’t stop the spread, not with so many people packed on the Brashear and nowhere to send them. The captain could only hope to slow the contagion, give Margaret and Tim time to come up with a solution.

  And if they didn’t find that solution? This would end with an F-27 Eagle dropping a firebomb on the entire task force. Carl Brashear would join the Forrest Sherman, the Stratton and the Los Angeles at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Would Clarence and Margaret still be aboard if that happened? Maybe. If Murray Longworth wasn’t sure that he and Margaret were clean, he’d torch them without a second thought.

  Clarence couldn’t do anything to help Tim and Margaret. What he could do was pay attention to the diver entering the wreck of the Los Angeles.

  On the counter in front of him, Clarence had diagrams of the Los Angeles’s layout. He watched the diver’s progress on the console’s small screens. It was quite different from the deep-water dives he’d seen on the Discovery Channel: no rust, no colorful clusters of barnacles and anemones, no schools of bright fish. The LA had sunk only three days earlier — just a broken, gray hull sitting on a lifeless lake bottom.