The couple had always been close, but with death hovering all around, expressions of affection had become more frequent. Myra’s face was thinner now, and there were perpetual circles around her eyes, but they still brimmed with life.
“You’ve been fighting again!” she said accusingly. “I know because the casualties show up here.”
Walker grinned. “Who, me?” he protested as he looked around. There were fifteen or twenty patients crammed into the building—at least three of whom were dying of amoebic dysentery. The rest were getting treatment for cuts and bruises received during the recent dustup. A couple of committeemen were present and glowered at Walker as their injuries were tended to. He ignored them and turned back to Myra.
“Let’s have dinner together,” Walker said. “I’ll take you to the best restaurant in town. To hell with the cost.”
Myra smiled brightly.
“But I don’t have anything to wear!”
“They’re very understanding over at the boil,” Walker assured her. “Dirty, blood-splattered clothes are in this year.”
“Well, in that case, I would be delighted,” Myra replied gravely. “Give me five minutes to finish what I was doing and I’ll be ready to go.”
Walker stepped back outside to wait for her, and watched as the sun descended below the western rim of the pit, and darkness settled into the stink hole. By the time Myra emerged from the med center, another freezing-cold night had begun. The sky was clear, so the couple could see a scattering of stars as they made their way over to the boil, where they fell into line behind a blanket-clad man and his ten-year-old daughter.
Each prisoner received three handcrafted tin tokens per day, which they were free to use as they saw fit. Some hoarded the disks for reasons Walker couldn’t understand. Others used the tokens to pay for items of clothing, or personal services, sometimes including sex. But most people—the Walkers included—were happy to exchange their tokens for three hot meals per day.
Each meal was always the same, with a consistency of oatmeal, yet different because the ingredients varied. So as the line shuffled toward the fire-blackened cauldron, there was always a certain amount of suspense, not to mention rumors, regarding the contents of the occasionally noxious brew.
As Walker’s stomach continued to growl, and he accepted a chromed baby moon hubcap from one of the volunteers, he wondered what sort of gustatory experience was waiting for him. The “glop masters,” as they were jokingly called, were men and women who were willing to cook and serve for an extra token a day, and Walker knew the woman who ladled two dollops of glutinous “boil” onto his makeshift plate. Edith had a halo of gray hair, a broad face, and a big smile.
“Hello, Myra, hello, Henry,” she said cheerfully. “You’re going to like the boil tonight! A couple of cases of meatballs came in today. Most people are getting at least one or two.”
And sure enough, consistent with Edith’s prophecy, both Walkers found meatballs in their mush. A tasty brew that included oatmeal, canned peas, and a scattering of raisins. It was important to eat quickly, because even though the boil was hot, their metal plates were cold and the temperature was dropping. So the Walkers hurried over to the edge of a nearby terrace where layers of rock offered stadium-style seating. Once in place it was time to fish spoons out of their pockets and dig in.
By unspoken agreement there was no conversation during dinner, just eating, so as to consume the food before it grew cold. And even though Myra would have never considered doing such a thing in her Washington home, the former socialite didn’t hesitate to lick her bowl clean once her food was gone.
“Not bad,” Walker said as he put his empty hubcap aside. “Although my mush was a bit overcooked.”
Myra laughed. “I’ll tell the maître d’. Come on, it’s time to get ready for bed.”
Just about all the stink hole’s prisoners went to bed early. Partly because there was nothing else to do, partly because it was easier to stay warm that way, and partly because just about all of them were bone-tired. There were no formal sleeping arrangements, just hundreds of improvised shelters, many of which had been constructed by people who had been marched up to the processing plant above. The Walkers’ lean-to was no exception.
It consisted of a slab of steel that had once served as a bridge over a drainage ditch. At some point prior to their arrival it had been moved using muscle power, and tipped into position against the second-lowest terrace. That was as high as the humans were allowed to go without being shot by the Bullseye-toting Hybrid guards above. Backed by automatic weapons and mortars, they were in an unassailable position. The Chimera liked the cold temperatures, and glowered down from above as the Walkers ducked under their slanted roof.
Wood was too precious to be used as a floor, so their bedrolls rested on layers of cardboard, which offered a little bit of insulation from the hard frozen ground. One end of the lean-to had been sealed with a piece of raggedy carpet, cut to size. Once inside it was Walker’s job to close the other end with a carefully crafted plug made out of canvas stretched over a wooden frame. An oil lamp similar to the ones being used in the escape tunnels provided what little light there was.
Having opened their slightly damp bedrolls, and climbed inside with their clothes still on, the Walkers were ready to sleep. Or Henry was anyway, because after kissing his wife good night, he soon began to snore. Myra knew the pattern well, and once her husband was asleep, allowed herself to cry. The sobs were muffled by blankets and therefore nearly inaudible, but they lasted for a long time.
Myra awoke to find her husband gone. That was no surprise since he always rose earlier than she did. Daylight was filtering in around the carpet and the canvas “door” behind her head by then.
She would have preferred to remain in bed for a while, comfortably cocooned inside her carefully maintained air pocket, but Myra needed to pee. So she steeled herself against the cold, rolled out of her slightly damp bedding, and remembered all of the steaming-hot baths she had taken for granted during her previous life. Long luxurious soaks that lasted for half an hour or more. But it was best to forget such things, to relegate them to the past along with the joys of clean clothes and hot tea.
After a visit to the nearest four-holer, Myra went to collect her tokens before making her way over to the boil. Myra knew most of her fellow prisoners, as a result of working in the med center, and said hello to them as she passed, but few were willing to do more than mumble a neutral response. And she knew why.
Because even though many of the prisoners had lost track of the calendar date, all of them knew that the Chimera came down into the pit to take people away every third day, which meant that today someone was going to die. So people found it difficult to look one another in the eye and exchange friendly greetings until a new seventy-two-hour clock began. Then it would be time to mourn those who had been taken, commiserate with whatever newbies had been brought in overnight, and try to ignore the horror of what was taking place.
Still, even with that understanding, it seemed as if people were especially taciturn that morning as Myra waited in the line, received her portion of the boil, and went off to eat it. The glutinous mess was almost identical to the glop served the evening before, except that there was only one meatball in her portion and kernels of canned corn had been added. Once she was finished, Myra took her hubcap over to the kitchen area where she turned it in prior to leaving for work.
The first thing Myra noticed about the Med Center was the absence of a line. But that wasn’t too unusual for a three-day when most people did whatever they could to keep a low profile. So as Myra opened the door, and stepped inside, she was readying herself to face the usual chores, many of which were quite unpleasant.
But what awaited her was something entirely different.
A familiar stench hung heavy in the air, people were sobbing, and three heavily armed Hybrids were present. As was Norma Collins.
“You’re five minutes late,” the collaborato
r said accusingly, as if she was in charge of the clinic. “Turn around and go back outside.”
Myra led the way, closely followed by her fellow staffers and all of the patients, some of whom were so sick they could barely walk, dressed in little more than street clothes, with nothing more than socks on their feet. A few complained, but doing so was pointless as the Chimera herded them onto the spiral road.
Myra felt liquid lead collect in the pit of her stomach and battled to control the sudden desire to go to the bathroom.
Judging from appearances the stinks had been waiting inside the clinic for some time. If so, that would explain why people had been unwilling to interact with Myra earlier, knowing as they did that she was marked for death. Some were sad, no doubt, but secretly happy as well, having been granted another seventy-two hours of life.
Myra’s head swiveled back and forth as she looked for her husband, desperately hoping for one last moment of eye contact and a final wave, but he was nowhere to be seen. Yet that meant Henry would live a bit longer, and she was grateful.
That left Myra with nothing to do but trudge up the muddy slope and face what lay ahead. The air smelled clean and fresh, with just a slight tang of wood smoke. The weak, nearly powerless sunlight bathed everything around her in gold, and Myra could hear blood pounding in her ears as she and her doomed companions circled the pit like birds uncertain of where to land. She had regrets, but very few, and felt fortunate to be alive, if only for a short while longer.
As Walker left Escape Tunnel 1, made his way through the four-holer beyond, and stepped out into the well-churned muck, he knew instantly that something was wrong. An almost perfect silence hung over the pit, hundreds of people stood staring up at the road, and then he remembered. It was three-day, the stinks were making a withdrawal from their meat bank, and people were going to die. That was when the glop master named Edith turned to him with tears running down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said sympathetically. “Myra was a very nice person.”
What felt like ice water trickled into Walker’s veins.
“No!” he shouted, and began to run. If the stinks were going to take Myra, then he would go as well, and they would die together.
Burl heard Walker, saw him start to run, and knew what the man had in mind. But Burl was aware of the recorder, the recordings, and how important they were.
So he hurried to cut Walker off, threw his arms around him, and brought the ex-Secretary of War crashing down. Then, as members of the Fair and Square Squad hurried to help, Burl kept Walker from getting up.
That was when Tolly and a group of his cronies sauntered over. Tolly offered Burl an evil grin. “Remember this the next time a dump falls out of the sky,” the committeeman said ominously. “And remember, it belongs to us.”
That generated a chorus of agreement from the other committeemen, who slapped one another’s backs, and left as a group.
Another day had begun.
There were lights inside what had been the mine’s smelter, but not very many, because the Spinners wanted it that way. Like the rest of the forms to which the Chimeran virus had given life, the Spinners had a specific purpose, and an important one. That was to take human beings, and seal them inside a chrysalis-like cocoon, where a complex series of chemical reactions converted them into whatever type of Chimera was in short supply at the moment. Hybrids mostly, since they were the foot soldiers in the battle to conquer Earth, and were subject to a high casualty rate.
None of this was known to the Spinners, who were little more than parts in a biological machine, the purpose of which was beyond their understanding.
So as Myra was forced to enter the long rectangular building, and gagged on the stench, she was unaware of the fact that the Hybrids urging her forward had once been human. And that was just as well, because knowing would have served no purpose other than to make an already horrible experience even worse. As she moved forward, scritching sounds were heard and hideous-looking monsters peered out from the compartments in which they lived. Cubicles which, judging from the layer of the fecal matter in them, hadn’t been cleaned out in quite a while.
As Myra was chivvied down the main corridor, her knees felt weak, and her heart beat like a trip hammer. She knew the stinks were going to kill her, but she didn’t know how. And not knowing was worse than any fate she could imagine.
Then she was there, standing in front of an open bay as a Spinner came out to inspect her. It was about the size of a large dog, and walked crablike on six claw-shaped feet. Myra screamed, and screamed again, as something hot and sticky shot out to make contact with her body. Then she was spinning, feet off the floor, as the goo wrapped her in a sticky embrace. Once the thick impermeable substance rose to encircle her chin, Myra knew how she was going to die, and uttered one last scream before hot sealer filled her mouth. Then she was choking, unable to breathe, as the newly formed chrysalis hardened around her.
Meanwhile, in the curing room a hundred feet away, a scabrous arm shot out of a cocoon. One of dozens that occupied that particular area. Pieces of rotting chrysalis fell away to land on the filth below as the Hybrid struggled to deliver itself. There was a ripping sound as the pod broke open and a scabrous thing staggered out onto the floor. It was clad in rags and the sad remnants of a pair of lace-up hunting boots.
Myra was dead by that time—and a Chimera had been born.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Talking the Talk
Denver, Colorado
Saturday, December 15, 1951
It was snowing beyond the large picture window that looked out over the Denver Federal Center. The flakes were big and wet, as if determined to reach the ground in record time, where they quickly turned to slush.
In spite of what he had repeatedly said to the press, President Grace didn’t like Denver, Colorado. But given the intermittent spire attacks—like the one that narrowly missed him while visiting the Lincoln Memorial—it was the best place to be. The brush with death had been a very unsettling experience. It not only cast doubt upon his ability to protect the citizens of the United States, but it forced the government to flee inland.
And the incident left Grace with a knot of fear in his belly. Not just a fear of failure, but fear for his life, which had been threatened on that dark day.
Such were his thoughts as he turned away from the wintry scene that lay beyond the glass, crossed his recently completed office, and entered the hall beyond. The crown molding was up by that time, but as he made his way down the corridor painters were still at work, and it was necessary to thread his way between their ladders.
Rather than try to imitate the Cabinet Room in the genuine White House, the decision had been made to create something entirely different under the cupola, which was positioned at the very center of the new residence. In keeping with the dome above, the table around which the President’s advisers were about to gather was circular, symbolizing the collegial spirit that Grace liked to project as being typical of his administration.
The table rested on a round carpet that was large enough for all twelve chairs to rest on. Provisions had been made for aides to sit higher up, behind a low wall, where they could observe what went on below and participate if called upon to do so. That section was empty, however, partly because it was a Saturday, and partly because the gently curving seats were still being constructed.
In keeping with Grace’s well-known penchant for punctuality, all of his subordinates were present when he entered the room. They stood as he strode to where his chair awaited, located at the eastern point of the compass-shaped inlay that was set into the mahogany tabletop. Vice President Harvey McCullen’s chair marked the western point of the compass, Secretary of State Harold Moody stood with his back to the north, and newly named Secretary of War General Gregory Issen was stationed to the south.
The others, including Presidential Counsel Hanson, Attorney General Clowers, Secretary of Agriculture Seymore, Secretary of Transportation Keyes, Secretary of the In
terior Farnsworth, Secretary of Commerce Lasky, and Chief of Staff Dentweiler, occupied the quadrants in between, with room to spare.
The room still reeked of fresh paint as Grace motioned for his advisers to sit down. The reports that followed were anything but encouraging: As Seymore spoke of persistent food shortages, Keyes bemoaned a lack of trains necessary to move critical supplies around, and Lasky reported that the steadily growing underground economy was a serious problem. The greenback was steadily falling out of favor as more and more citizens were choosing to use silver coins, gold pieces, and old-fashioned barter to settle their debts. All of which made for a very gloomy meeting until it was Dentweiler’s turn to speak.
“So, Bill,” Grace said. “What have you got for us? Something positive I hope.”
It was Dentweiler’s moment, and he planned to take full advantage of it, as all eyes rested on him. “Yes, Mr. President, I do have something positive to report. Simply put, Project Omega is poised for success. The first objective, which was to recapture Daedalus, has been accomplished.”
That news was sufficient to stimulate applause, which made Dentweiler feel very good, and brought a broad smile to Grace’s face.
“Well done! That’s the sort of thing we need more of. Where is he?”
“Sheridan, Wyoming, sir,” Dentweiler replied. “Our experts are trying to establish workable communication protocols with Daedalus. Once that effort is complete, we’ll be able to open negotiations anytime we want to.”
“So, Daedalus is cooperative?” Farnsworth wanted to know.
Dentweiler smiled tightly.
“No,” he answered honestly, “I wouldn’t go that far… But, thanks to the right sort of encouragement, Daedalus continues to grow more cooperative with each passing day. Let’s put it that way.”
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