At the End of the World

by Charles E Gannon

  “Wow! Is that even possible?”

  Prospero smiled. “Won’t know until we get to Kourou.”

  So, now we came to it. “Why there, if it’s not a ground station for GPS?”

  “Because, even after the plague hit, it had a functioning, world-class antenna: Diane. It was specifically designed to check telemetry and on-board systems of launch vehicles and their payloads. Such as satellites.”

  I nodded. “And it could send this software up to the GPS platforms?”

  He nodded back. “Given the right instructions, and assuming it remains operational, yes.”

  “Whoa: ‘Assuming it remains operational’? You just said it was.”

  He shrugged. “I have no particular reason to suspect it isn’t. However, it’s been months since my last contact with the ESA, and the region around Kourou was just as porous to the virus as the rest of the South American coast.”

  Jeeza frowned. “Yeah, but…isn’t French Guiana pretty, well, remote?”

  Prospero nodded. “It is a small country and not many people travel to Kourou other than to work at, or visit, the launch facility. But it is not completely isolated, so there are likely to be some stalkers either in or near the ESA complex.

  “Fortunately, it has—or had—a dedicated regiment of the French Foreign Legion for base security and lockdown. When last I was in communication with the ESA staff, they were still coordinating the global programming efforts but had already locked themselves into an underground shelter with three months’ worth of supplies.”

  “And?”

  “And comms degraded. We were reduced to pings. Then everything went sidewise here. No more intercontinental transmitters or e-mail. I picked up their pings on our best maritime radio for a few weeks. After that, silence.” He shrugged. “I stopped thinking about it. There was nothing I could do.”

  I crossed my arms. “And then we showed up. Heading in the right direction.” He nodded but didn’t say anything. “And you’ve been trying to figure out how to recruit us. To help you in Kourou.”

  He nodded again. “Something like that.”

  “Yeah, something like that, and a little more.”

  Rod frowned. “Whaddya mean, Alvaro?”

  “He means,” Chloe answered quickly, “that Percival here has been trying to position himself as head honcho, too. To be the boss when he steps on Voyager.” She smiled. “How do you think that’s looking, Percy?”

  To his credit, Prospero smiled. “Not bloody likely.” He spread his hands. “Frankly, when I learned your ages, I couldn’t imagine how you’d made it here at all. I supposed it was some combination of modest skill and profound good fortune. But I was wrong.”

  Chloe’s chin came up proudly. “Yeah, we’ve gotten pretty good at what we do.”

  He nodded. “I wager that you have, but that’s not what changed my mind.”

  Steve rolled his head over to stare at Prospero. “What did, then?”

  “Seeing you work together. You’ve become a team. And I don’t just mean a group of mates that get along and help each other. I mean that you’ve sorted out who’s got what skills, and who takes what roles. And because you did it on your own, it flows naturally. Not like—well, not like the RAF. Or any other service.”

  Jeeza rested her chin on her hand. “I thought they would work better.”

  Prospero shrugged. “In many ways and under most circumstances, yes. There’s never any question who is in charge. Well, not officially. Each person’s role is clearly defined and strictly enforced. But some teams, some squads—they never gel. So it remains a bumpy ride.”

  “So,” I said, “where does that leave us, Senior Aircraftman Halethorpe? How do we settle this? Pistols at dawn?”

  He shook his head, dead serious. “You lot won’t take me as your leader. I’m from the outside, even if I have a military rank and a few years on you.”

  “It’s more than that, Percival,” Chloe jumped in. “Tell me: do you sail as well as we do? Have you been trained by an SAS officer?” She was going too far with that one, but she was on a roll, so I didn’t jump in. “Have you been in a firefight?”

  Prospero’s eyebrows and posture got a little straighter. “I seem to remember being alongside all of you for the last two.”

  Chloe’s chin pushed toward him. “That’s not a firefight, Percival. A firefight is when there are people shooting back at you. Like in Husvik. ’Cause if you think that the only things we have to worry about in this world are infected, then you may be in for a nasty surprise.”

  I leaned into the space between them. “Not that we’re looking for a repeat of Husvik,” I assured him and reminded her. “In general, humans with guns are a lot more dangerous than infected. But Chloe’s right; an apocalypse doesn’t seem to bring out the best in people.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough. And I agree: you have the skills that will get us to Kourou and keep us alive along the way. But once we’re there, you won’t know what to do. I will.” He crossed his own arms. “How do we resolve that impasse?”

  I’d seen this coming and had an answer ready; gaining the initiative is how you put yourself in charge of any conflict. “No impasse, Prospero. We just separate areas of authority.”

  “How so?”

  “Simple. When we’re at sea or scrounging on land—anything other than helping you at Kourou—we call the shots. But once we set foot in the facility, you’re in charge. Presuming you know the layout and where we’ve got to go.”

  He nodded. “I do.” A pause. “Mostly.”

  Chloe rolled her eyes. “So your actual answer is no, you don’t know.”

  He reddened. “Before the secure net went down, I downloaded all the maps I could find. Granted, most of them were from archived Google Earth snapshots. But I didn’t think everything would go pear-shaped so fast.”

  I could hardly blame him for that. The plague had outpaced almost everyone’s worst-case scenarios. “The way I see it, our job at Kourou is to find a way not to fight infected but to get you to the control center so you can work your computer mojo.”

  Steve looked over at me. “Seriously? You think we should do this?”

  I ignored him, kept my eyes on Prospero. “So you come up with the plan. We reserve veto power on the details. And once we’ve delivered you to the control center, our job is to keep you safe until the program is uploaded and activated.”

  He shrugged. “Acceptable.” I could tell he had hoped for more authority when we got to Kourou, but I just couldn’t accept putting my friends’ lives in his hands.

  Steve hadn’t stopped looking at me. “Really?” he asked.

  Now I looked at him. “Really. Think of how much we’ve relied on GPS, both getting to South Georgia and again since we left. We’d have been floundering around in the South Atlantic for months, might have starved out there.” I saw Chloe about to object. “And yeah, maybe we could have navigated well enough with sextant, compass, maps, and clock. But that’s a big maybe. And since most people who’ve survived the plague don’t have those navigation skills, keeping GPS up and running could be the difference between taking back this planet in ten years instead of a hundred. If ever.”

  Steve’s eyes closed slowly. “Some of us won’t survive Kourou, Alvaro.”

  Jeeza sat straighter. “Steve, you can’t know—”

  “He’s right to point out the risk,” Prospero said with a sad nod. “Getting out could be more difficult than getting in, depending on what we find there.”

  A little help here, Prospero? “One way or the other, the longer we wait to really fight back, the less likely we’ll be able to do so effectively. And if there’s even a slim chance of keeping GPS alive, that helps everyone who’s still got electricity and a locator to stay alive and join the fight.”

  Rod nodded rapidly. “GPS isn’t just about knowing where you are. It’s about having a way to coordinate. To gather. To attack. Or defend. Or retreat. Without that, you’re just lost in Infected Countr
y, waiting for them to roll over you in waves. So, it’s worth it. It’s worth all of us, if it comes down to it.”

  I wondered if Rod would be as brave as his words. If any of us would, if we found ourselves surrounded by those howling monsters with distorted human faces. But all I said was, “Are we cool with helping Prospero save GPS?” I looked at Steve. “It’s got to be all in or nothing. We can’t split up.”

  Steve opened his eyes, glanced at me, then at Prospero. “I’m cool.”

  I nodded, felt good about making the decision, but felt sick to my stomach because Prospero was right: unless the Kourou facility was deserted, it was not likely that all of us would come back from that mission. “Okay,” I said, “then let’s get dinner and get to sleep early. Big day at the airfield tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Right as I was pulling aside the sheets to climb into bed, I smacked my forehead.

  “What?” Chloe asked.

  “We didn’t decide on music.”

  “Music?” She slid over to my side of the bed. “Babe, we don’t need music. Besides, we don’t have any.”

  “No, I mean for the speakers. For tomorrow. I can’t take another whole day of shooting stalkers with the Monty Python theme as the soundtrack.”

  “Oh, that,” she said with a flounce. “No worries. I’ve got that handled.”

  “Y-you do?” I stammered. Partly at her response, partly at the way she was looking at me.

  “I’ve got it all taken care of.” She smiled. “You’ll see.”

  October 22

  “See?” Chloe yelled over the music. “All taken care of!”

  I managed not to grit my teeth, but I couldn’t help rolling my eyes.

  She laughed, put her high cheekbone to the stock of the .308, peered down the scope, and fired.

  I had a FAL, tried to do the same, but was tempted to swing it around and take out the speakers on top of the Rover just behind me. Anything to stop the idiotic repetition of the most idiotic lyrics in the world, howled by one of rock’s most flamboyant front men.

  An idiot song about a bicycle. A bicycle. About riding it where I like.

  Holy crap, how I hate that friggin’ song.

  I aimed and fired. The stalker who’d just come stumping out of the shadows of Wideawake Field’s small air terminal missed a step, fell, did not get up.

  The rocker’s voice, as dramatic as any operatic diva’s, kept hammering away at my eardrums: something something about black or white. Bark or bite. But always back to that god-damned bicycle.

  Sweet mother of God. I was so eager to drown it out, I probably fired a little early at the next stalker, only caught him in the arm. Before I could finish him off, Steve put a second round in his solar plexus.

  “That’s seventeen!” shouted Jeeza from atop the other Rover.

  “What about the rear?” I shouted back.

  She turned, scanned behind us. “Nothing. Wait. One. Still a kilometer off.”

  “Track him,” I yelled.

  “It’s a ‘her.’ I’m on it, Alvaro.”

  And still, over all of that, I could still hear it—“Bicycle! Bicycle!”—sung so loud and clear and high that no amount of earpro would have been able to keep it out. Not that we could wear any; we had to hear each other over his diva-crooning. So I simply had to accept that today, Chloe’s musical bliss was my torment.

  However, it was a positive sign that I had enough time and focus to mentally bitch about her choice of musical stalker-bait. Because if that’s your worst problem when you’re potshotting ravenous zombies, it’s a good day.

  It had started with us driving into camp using a rear access lane that skirted the housing area so we could check out the pile of bodies at the base of Cat Hill. We’d expected some stalkers to be scavenging there, and potted three of them doing just that, but no others. Which was a little surprising, because we could smell the corpses at fifty yards, and the infected seem to get heightened senses when they turn.

  We bypassed the housing complex and rolled up on the airfield at about 0545. The stalkers there are early risers; their only fresh water source is whatever condenses on the runway. How that taint of macadam doesn’t kill them over time, I can’t tell you. I guess turning also toughens the digestive track. Regular humans would have been puking their guts out. Or spending half the day in the latrine.

  We had the AKs and shotguns at hand, but we never needed them. We parked out on the tarmac, about a hundred yards from the dinky terminal and support buildings, cranked up the music (if you can call it that), and waited with our FALs.

  It was almost half an hour before the first came staggering out. I didn’t need Jeeza’s binoculars or Chloe’s scope to see that this stalker was in pretty bad shape. Halfway-to-Dachau thin, and not capable of running. Its movement was more like an annoyed lope. So there was plenty of time for Rod, the first person in the day’s firing rota, to take him down. If any stalker got to within fifty yards, Chloe was waiting with the bolt action. And if, by some freakish chance, she missed or had a misfire, there were always the shotguns and AKs.

  The infected that emerged from the terminal were weak and slow. Clearly, they’d been in torpor for a long time. Otherwise, it’s certain they would have joined the mobs that attacked us at the intersection or the Wizard’s Tower. But I’m betting that these stalkers—or, more accurately, stumblers—had to hide from their own kind or get eaten.

  They staggered out at wide intervals and in ones and twos, which made them easy targets. We had the luxury to aim all our shots and pay attention to our mechanics, rather than just dropping threats as quickly as we could. In short, it was like having a live fire range with real live targets, but almost no risk. And because of that, we had the ability to take turns at learning what we were doing wrong, how to fix it, and become better marksmen.

  Now, if you are reading this in some future where there are no more infected, and you have a balanced diet and a safe place to sleep every night, that might sound pretty cold. Damn near sociopathic, I guess. But teaching ourselves how to shoot at moving targets more accurately was the biggest boost to our survival odds since the Captain showed us how to sail, and then, set up an ambush.

  I had the last place in the “training rota,” and the rate at which infected were appearing was tapering off. But my spirits lifted because that asinine song concluded.

  My relief was short-lived. Almost immediately, the musical void was filled by a torch-song piano riff that threatened to tumble over itself. It was joined a second later by the same diva-voice, crooning moody lyrics.

  I knew what was coming. “Christ,” I muttered, “dear Christ. Send me deliverance. Send me a stumbler to shoot. To drown that out. Right now. Please. Oh, please.”

  But no stick-thin silhouette came shambling out of the terminal, so I had no reason to use gunfire to drown out the sudden surging, melodramatic strains of the new song. One I hated almost as much. About champions. Who will keep on fighting to the end.

  Give me a break, you candy-ass. As if you were ever in the shit. Like we are.

  I scanned the other building exits: still nothing. Sweet Jesus.

  Repetitive, moaned claims of being champions—the champions!—evoked two powerful reactions: to puke and laugh. Simultaneously. I thumped my forehead against the FAL’s receiver. “Jeeza, is there anything to shoot?”

  And now there was no time for losers because diva-boy and his pals were the champions. Champions…of the world!

  Jeeza looked down. “What’s wrong, Alvaro?”

  “I friggin’ hate this band. Hate them!”

  Chloe’s voice was loud, sharp. “Hey! My dad liked them!”

  “Yeah?” I shot back without thinking. “Well, your dad—”

  Then I saw her face. Her eyes.

  “Your dad,” I continued, “at least had the good taste to have the most outstanding and beautiful daughter in the world.”

  Chloe doesn’t surprise easy, but I guess she hadn’t seen that c
ourse change coming. Her mouth turned into a full-lipped “O.” Then she got a look on her face which translated as, “You are SO getting laid tonight.”

  As I finish writing this in our very, very unmade bed, I have to say: diva-boy and his band still suck. But I suppose I can tolerate them.

  So long as their music produces the right kind of outcome.

  October 23

  The next day, as we climbed out of the Rovers, we had to keep the three dogs heeled in close on their leashes. They’d been growling and getting stiff-legged and puffy-furred from the time we turned into the base housing complex, the shadow of Cat Hill still a long lump pointing back toward the New World. Chloe had practical experience with dogs, but we didn’t want her handling them instead of a gun. Because you really can’t do both.

  Besides, the dogs all decided that they really, really liked Rod; couldn’t do enough to please him. Oh, they fawned all over Jeeza, but it was like she was the Queen-Mother to his King. Turns out Rod’s suburban upbringing had involved dogs that could not fit in a lady’s handbag, even when they were still blind puppies. I guess they caught vibe off him from the way he got right in among them and got them all excited about chasing sticks and charging around. He was smart about them, too. Example: if he played a game with them, it was one he was sure he could win. Otherwise, if they did things like rushing in and trying to bait him, to get him to grab for them, he always remained half-hearted about it. Like a big papa dog indulging pups.

  They ate that stuff up just as eagerly as they ate fish and tortoise scraps from his hands. For a special treat, he’d let them get up on their hind legs and take the morsels from his teeth. Nothing made them happier.

  But now it was time to put them to work. We moved the two Rovers to the center of the approximate main street of the housing section, Chloe on one car roof with the scoped .308, Jeeza on the other with her binoculars. The rest of us followed Rod and his mongrel horde up and down that stretch of road and the lanes that ran off from it, shotguns and AKs at the ready.