It's Not the End

by Matt Moore

  Or Danielson. Cut in half by an IED. Chest level. Could see the bottom of his lungs inflating. Still alive, dragging himself through the sand and rocks, begging for us to kill him. But we couldn’t do it. Knew we had to, but couldn’t. He finally offed himself.

  Ever lose anyone close, Under Secretary? A parent? A child, maybe? That’s nothing. Imagine your happiest memories torn away. A healthy tooth ripped out of your jaw. A ragged, bloody wound that will never heal.

  And then those things we did to the locals. Soldier, revolutionary, counter-revolutionary. Even civilians. Cutting them, beating them, killing one while another watched.

  It wasn’t payback. It just needed to be done. We needed the intelligence: enemy size and location, passable routes, places where we could get food and water.

  I figured we were getting frosty.

  But the truth is, I could murder a hundred infants with my bare hands. To protect the Pack. You bastard, what did you do to us?

  Damn it, a good soldier needs to know when to stop.

  So after three weeks, six of us walked out of that desert. All Pack. Even Depardieu, who hadn’t been hit. And with Lieutenant Carter dead, I was its leader.

  We lied to Holding during the debriefing, of course. Didn’t tell him we’d survived shit that should have killed us. He’s a good officer, but we lied to his face. Figured if we didn’t, you might start poking and prodding us. Maybe split us up.

  And we couldn’t handle that.

  Wasn’t a surprise when Colonel Holding told us we had a new mission. More dangerous than the first. We knew a suicide mission when we heard it.

  So we tied Holding like we got you tied. Worked her over. Following orders, she said. Came down through a General, but started near the top. You.

  Don’t know why we let Holding live.

  So we got off the base. Quick, clean. When six men work as one there’s not much we can’t do. But our pictures were all over the news within hours. So we cut up our faces. Used hammers on our jaw and cheek bones. Just enough to not be recognized. It healed, of course, so we’d do it again.

  Day after day.

  Think about the pain, Under Secretary.

  Think.

  About.

  It.

  Now do you get it? We didn’t volunteer for this. To be dead inside. You made us, so you’re going to fix it. Turn us back into the men—the soldiers—we used . . .

  One of my friends has found something. He’s . . .

  Who’s . . . ?

  [SILENCE]

  This is you.

  [SILENCE]

  You’re Pack.

  [SILENCE]

  [To Recorder] Colonel Holding: If you’re looking for us, we’re going back to the desert. Call off the search. We’re not a threat. We understand now that we can never go back to our lives. But we can make peace.

  DOCUMENT 5: COMMUNIQUÉ

  SENDER: Colonel R.C. Holding

  RECIPIENT: Brigadier General Douglas Stern, AWSRDEC

  Sir. Thank you for forwarding me that transcript. I’ve found their trail. Ramstein, then Blackjack Air Base. Looks like transport was authorized by Assistant Deputy Undersecretary Bernshaw himself. It seems the Pack took him with them.

  I’m healed up and ready to go. Arthur Neech can assume command while I’m gone.

  DOCUMENT 6: COMMUNIQUÉ

  SENDER: Dr. C.-L. Ibarro, Medical Director, ASESP

  RECIPIENT: Brigadier General Douglas Stern, AWSRDEC

  I have reviewed Colonel Holding’s medical files from the exam following her interrogation by Sergeant Calabrese.

  She has nanites in her blood at levels comparable to those in the program. I believe she is now a member of the Pack. This would explain her rapid recovery.

  I believe the transmission vector is simple exposure. Hospital conditions allow containment, but outside those the nanites might spread. I believe that when a serious wound is inflicted, the nanites replicate at an accelerated rate to repair the wound. Anyone so exposed will be Pack.

  I have also reviewed the audio file from Undersecretary Bernshaw’s basement.

  We must first assume Undersecretary Bernshaw has become infected given the head injury inflicted by Sergeant Calabrese that rendered Bernshaw unconscious.

  I also believe Sergeant Calabrese’s reported lack of emotion is caused by the nanites’ modifications to the amygdala. The modifications’ original purpose to reduce stress reactions caused by critical injuries has become amplified. Members of the Pack may be incapable of emotional reactions or attachments, similar to psychopaths. They do, however, possess a strong bond with one another.

  I am further beginning to suspect the shared hybrid model allows some form of wordless communications. The recording and Colonel Holding’s reports include moments of prolonged silence. Each nanite model communicates using a unique wireless network. This hybrid model would have a single network. This network may allow the only emotional attachment these people can feel. Further study will be required.

  I recommend Colonel Holding be found and detained immediately.

  DOCUMENT 7: COMMUNIQUÉ

  SENDER: Brigadier General Douglas Stern, AWSRDEC

  RECIPIENT: Maj. A. Neech, Officer Commanding (Acting), ASESP

  Arthur—

  We tracked Holding to Forward Air Base Blackjack, but lost her. We’ve got reports she headed into the desert. We think she’s going to join Calabrese and the Pack. Fighting is down in that sector, so I want you to find Holding, Undersecretary Bernshaw and all surviving members of ASESP. Neutralize them. Ibarro thinks killing the host will cause the nanites to shut down.

  We’ve got to contain this, Arthur. There’s no way to know what’ll happen if this gets out of hand.

  —General Stern

  DOCUMENT 8: COMMUNIQUÉ

  SENDER: Major A. Neech. Officer Commanding (Acting), ASESP

  RECIPIENT: Brigadier General Douglas Stern, AWSRDEC

  General Stern: This will be the last communiqué you’ll receive from me.

  Despite daily patrols these last few weeks, there’s no sign of Bernshaw, Holding, Dr. Ibarro, or any other member of the Pack.

  We’ve had no enemy contact, either. In fact, there’s been no fighting across eighteen sectors for five weeks.

  It must be the Pack. They’re spreading. These heartless killers are spreading peace. Just by their presence. Just by being here.

  But desertion rates have passed 35%. Soldiers are wandering off from patrols or in the middle of the night. Somehow the Pack has breached our walls, the infection spreading.

  I imagine the deserters are feeling the pull of the Pack the way Holding must have, despite being tortured by them. The way Calabrese must have, realizing some of the people he’d tortured had become Pack and he’d left them behind.

  They can’t stand being away from those like them. To feel like you belong instead of the slow stripping of anger and joy and fear. To be at peace.

  And General, I want it, too. Dear God, I don’t think I can fight it anymore.

  The Thing That Killed Her

  During their handshake, Alejandro got right to it. “I’m looking for Lydia.”

  The thick fingers of Cedric’s left hand covered Alejandro’s right, giving a sympathetic squeeze. “I’m sorry to hear she’s missing.” He motioned to the two wingback chairs beside his desk and sat.

  Much fancier, Alejandro thought as he took the seat opposite, than the ones in his small office at the state capitol a few blocks west.

  Cedric leaned forward: elbows on broad thighs, palms together, fingers steepled under his chin. His I’m really listening pose. “So how can I help you find her, Alejandro?”

  “Get me into the camp at Yale.”

  The lines in Cedric’s face pinched in confusion. Then his eyes went wide with realization.

  Before Cedric could speak, Alejandro pushed on. He hadn’t rehearsed, always better off the cuff. He explained how on the day of the Ascension he’d been on his way to
the state capitol before Lydia had woken up. Then his rush to get home. The chaos. The hell of not finding her and the last month of not knowing what happened. “If she’d turned that first day,” he said, words flowing like they came from some other, perfect place, “she’d have become lucid before the military moved in and starting slaughtering Second Chancers.” So far, he’d been telling the truth. For the lie, he let his anger slip loose. Voice trembling and letting go of the tears that always seemed near, he said: “I’ve been hearing rumours from the Yale camp. A woman Chancer who’d organized others during the Ascension. Kept them hidden and safe. Doesn’t that sound like Lydia?”

  “Alejandro . . .” Cedric leaned forward, resuming his pose. “Lydia could be—”

  His head went light. “Don’t say dead,” came out faster than he wanted.

  Cedric said, “I was going to say ‘she could be anywhere.’”

  “She’d have contacted me if she could. But not if troops locked her up.” Alejandro’s hands balled into fists. “Get me into the camp. Let me look for her.”

  “I assume you’ve tried to gain access?”

  Alejandro grunted and outlined how Governor Trumbell’s office had rebuffed his requests with terms like “ongoing threat” and “uncertain situation.” “But he might listen to you.”

  “I understand, Alejandro, but Trumbell owes me no favours. He and I both know it, so my asking him to grant you access would be seen as provocative.”

  Alejandro’s hands balled up again. Cedric’s calm, rational manner had helped vault him from the Connecticut General Assembly to the U.S. Senate last fall, becoming the state’s first black senator, but also meant he’d never climb higher. To move up, you had to be a fighter. “Then provoke him.”

  Cedric leaned back, smoothing his blue tie over a paunch he’d gained during the campaign. “Look, Alejandro, Trumbell is walking a fine line trying to prove his GOP bona fides at the national level while not alienating the blue state Republicans who elected him. But if pressed, we may not like his reaction.”

  “Where do you stand?”

  “I’m not sure what the Second Chancers are, but I will take the time to find out. Once we have a better understanding of their nature, we can determine their legal rights.”

  “How long you been rehearsing that line?”

  If the provocation had any impact, Cedric didn’t show it. “We’re still counting bodies, Alejandro. We must take the time to let ourselves come to grips with what has happened. For now, compromise is necessary on a number of issues.”

  Alejandro stomach dropped. Cedric didn’t consider this a meeting between friends, but something political. Back in the state Senate, Cedric had acted as Alejandro’s mentor. Only twenty-four when he’d won his first election, Alejandro had gravitated towards Cedric’s lack of pretense in private talks despite his outwardly calm persona. They both came from rough parts of Hartford and fought bare-knuckled in the back rooms for programs to help kids liked they’d been escape gangs, poverty and unemployment.

  But now the I’m really listening pose, repeatedly using Alejandro’s name and saying “Second Chancer”—the sympathetic term for those who lacked all medical indications of life yet continued to move and speak. Cedric was treating him with the care and politeness one used with a constituent, not the honesty of a friend. Perhaps Cedric viewed Alejandro as too controversial. Since Internet access had been restored, Alejandro had gained a small following on social media in demanding Governor Trumbell release Chancers from the camps.

  Yet Cedric had used the more pejorative terms in his public statements—“infected” instead of “Chancer” or “Second Chancer,” “outbreak” instead of “Ascension.” He hadn’t objected when Trumbell ordered the National Guard to confine the Chancers who’d survived the military’s near-extermination to large outdoor stadiums—exposed to the elements, no beds, no food or water. Not that Chancers needed to eat or sleep, but some states—Oregon, Maine, Massachusetts—had been more humane in putting Chancers in schools or government office buildings. Yet in other states, stories, photos, and videos streamed out of National Guard units hunting down and executing Chancers. Instead of segregating Chancers, as the President had ordered, the soldiers wanted payback.

  “If Lydia is in the camp,” Cedric continued, “and Chancers are indeed the same people they were before the Ascension, we have to wait.” Cedric stood, declaring the meeting over.

  Alejandro got to his feet.

  “I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you,” Cedric went on, “but I promise you, we are on the right side of history.” Cedric stepped forward, but as Alejandro extended his hand Cedric embraced him, saying, “Remember, you’re one of the good guys.”

  Caught off guard, Alejandro returned the hug.

  In the hallway, Alejandro jabbed the down button and paced. This meeting had been a long shot, but he’d hoped Cedric would let something slip. A rumour, an upcoming bill, anything he could leverage against Trumbell to get into the camp. He’d bring a video camera—or smuggle in his phone—in with him and interview as many Chancers as he could. Show that despite their ruined bodies and horrific appearance they were the same people as before the Ascension. Build support for their freedom. Bring down those who’d advocated their extermination—

  —Chancers’ faces, motionless, skin taut and tinged deep-bruise purple. Endless piles of them, burning—

  Things wobbled. He put a hand against the wall to steady himself.

  The elevator arrived. Getting in, Alejandro cursed Cedric. The Governor’s office had stonewalled him. The majority leader said they could take no action until the legislature sat. The dozens of court challenges would take years. With four-term U.S. Senator Martin Burnaby missing, Cedric was the state’s de facto senior senator with the power to get things done. But Alejandro, only in his third term as a state senator, feared he’d end up as he always had—acting the firebrand while senior party members consulted, negotiated and eventually compromised.

  He had nothing left. Except return to his too empty home.

  Stepping out of the lobby’s revolving door, a hint of the acrid burning fuel scent still hung in the hot afternoon air. With a breath—

  —panicked sprints between houses—

  —gunfire—

  —shapes moving in shadows—

  —Lydia at the back gate—

  “Oh God.” The city street pitched beneath him. Cold sweat broke out despite the afternoon heat. He leaned against a bus shelter, shoes crunching the shattered remains of its Plexiglas sides that still needed to be cleaned up.

  The morning when the Ascension had started, he’d meant to leave a note telling Lydia he loved her and he’d miss her during her visit with her family in Santa Monica. The time apart would be good, though. He could work late without feeling guilty. He’d been on his way to the capitol, merging from Route 9 onto I-91, when he realized he’d forgotten to write the note.

  He’d been in some committee meeting, checking his phone for word from Lydia that she’d reached the airport when he saw the e-mails. An emergency in New Haven. Then Hartford.

  Boston.

  Santa Fe.

  Tokyo, Johannesburg, Bonn.

  Still no word from Lydia.

  A page appeared and whispered to the chair, who’d gone pale and adjourned the meeting, saying: “We’re under some kind of attack.”

  Rumours had filled the halls. The State Troopers had urged everyone to sit tight, but that told Alejandro he needed to get out of there. Lydia didn’t pick up. The radio reported flights were grounded, airports in lockdown.

  Possibilities raced through his mind as he’d headed south for Middletown: she was safe at the airport; stuck in traffic; never left the house. The trip from the capitol building in downtown Hartford, normally thirty to forty minutes, took over three hours on the jammed highways.

  Finally reaching Middletown, he weaved around accidents and abandoned roadblocks. Motion surrounded him. People running—so
me fleeing, others pursuing. A lone police officer stood on the sidewalk, firing at people in a grocery store parking lot, the store itself ablaze.

  The sun setting, Alejandro reached home. Getting out, the roar of traffic mixing with random gunfire contrasted with the stillness of his deserted street. Scanning, he spotted a neighbourhood teenager—Kyle, he thought his name was—several houses down, running along the tree-lined street toward him. At him. Kyle’s long black hair had gone grey. Skin taut purple.

  Instinct propelled Alejandro into his house, slamming the front door and throwing the deadbolt just as Kyle clambered up onto the porch. The teen pounded on the door.

  “Lydia!” Alejandro had screamed. The door holding, he’d searched the house. Nothing. No cell signal. Landline dead. Indecision rooting him in place, his mind traced the futile Mobius-strip logic of needing to go find her, not knowing where to start, needing to try, but how—

  A man’s voice pulled him to the present. “Hey, you’re Alejandro Gutiérrez?”

  Alejandro pivoted, shoes grinding the Plexiglas shards, to find an older Hispanic man, hair streaked white and a fresh scar from ear to collar bone. “Yes.”

  The older man extended a hand and said in Spanish: “Bless you for your work. My wife, Mariana. Soldiers, they took her. She said the Blessed Virgin sent her back. She had a message for the world, but those cabrónes took her.”

  A buzz grew in his chest. Pumping the man’s hand to accentuate his words, Alejandro replied in Spanish. “I’m never going to stop fighting until our wives are free. Now excuse me, I have another meeting.”

  He fought to hang on to that enthusiasm as he headed for his car. Across the street, bullet holes pocked a building’s brick-red façade and plywood covered its shattered windows. Ragged scraps of yellow police tape tied to streetlights lay limp in the still air.

  Southbound on I-91, most of the highway had been cleared of abandoned cars, the few that remained pushed onto the grassy shoulder to be towed. On the radio, the anchor ticked off good news stories: flights had resumed at Bradley Airport, cell phone coverage had been restored to most of the state, schools were scheduled to reopen in a few weeks.