“I have to admit, Doc. For an orange balloon with a face mask, you look good.”
“Are you flirting with me before we begin to look for live cultures of a virus that killed everyone we knew?”
“But we’re safe? Right?”
She turned to look at him. The plexiglass face shield distorted her face a little bit at the curves, but he was again struck by her girl-next-door attractiveness. “We’re immune from the CBR-2a, which mutated from the 1d variety; at least that’s the best I can come up with from the notes we’ve found. I’m a baby doctor, Josh. Remember? I’m relying on what I recall from a virology class I took nine years ago.”
He gave a nod. She’d been nothing but honest about how this wasn’t close to her field of expertise or study. “I also remember you telling Cooper that it could mutate again.”
He could see her nodding inside her helmet as he zipped up his own suit as far as he could.
“That’s right. Viruses use RNA to reproduce, not DNA. If I remember correctly, it’s hardier than DNA and capable of mutating more readily. Viruses have been around a lot longer than we have.”
He turned away from Naomi and pulled on his helmet, allowing her to zip him up the rest of the way. “Kind of makes you wonder whether this is something we should be screwing with at all, don’t it?” He couldn’t see the reaction on her face as she continued the seal check on the back of his neck without comment. After what he had heard went down on the freeway two nights earlier, he’d given a lot of thought to what these military guys had said on the flyers they’d left behind.
She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “You’re good.”
He let his unanswered question go as he turned back around. She was smiling at him. “You ready?”
The cold room was inside what Naomi had told him was called the “hot lab.” The lab was accessed via an anteroom or air lock through a simple heavy steel door with rubber gaskets. He’d been through the process twice now and knew what to expect. They waited for the red light above the heavier inner door to turn green, signifying that the air pressure in the anteroom was significantly higher than in the lab.
At the green light, he pushed the door open with a hard shove, breaking the seal. Even in the moon suit, he could feel the air flow behind almost pushing them into the lab. He waited for Naomi to step across the threshold and then shut and sealed the door behind them. The first day, when they’d come just to access files and laptops, he’d asked why they were wearing moon suits if they were immune. The answer had frightened him to the core. The virus they were after was far from the only one in cold storage within. Even if the suck hadn’t mutated, if the cold storage had remained cool enough, there was other nasty shit in there that he’d just as soon avoid.
On the first day, Naomi’s research had found a catalog of the viruses warehoused within the cold storage. None of the strange-sounding names made him feel better, and the ones he did recognize—SARS, bird flu, West Nile—were just icing on the cake. He could remember thinking that shit like that shouldn’t ever be stored, anywhere, anytime, but who was he to say what the eggheads had needed to try to find a cure?
Yesterday, Naomi’s efforts had confirmed the presence of CBR-2a in cold storage. Today, they’d be going into the actual cold vault to check the temperature logs, and see how warm the place had gotten during the short period of time the hospital’s power had been down.
“There it is. Hope you remembered to wear your long johns.” The doctor was pointing and moving towards another heavy, polished stainless-steel door at the back of the room. The bright yellow biological hazard stickers on the door shouldn’t have given him pause at this point, but they did.
“Everything’s sealed up? Right?”
She turned to face him, and thumbed the sleeve of her moon suit. “Won’t know until we get in there, but I would think so. The suits will protect us.” She paused a moment, and waved toward the door. “You really don’t have to go in there with me . . .”
But he did. “Don’t let that halo-wearing doctor out of your sight.” Those had been his orders directly from Lisa Cooper. “Watch her like a hawk and ask questions so you know what she is doing at every step.”
He shook his head, comically aware that the head of his oversize helmet didn’t move at all. “Yeah . . . I do.”
The door didn’t want to open at first, but with a heavy push, it popped open, and they stepped in to the sound of rushing air following behind them. Once the door was shut and he found the light switch, Dr. Vance looked around slowly at the wire-framed shelving running down both sides of the freezer.
“Shit . . .” he heard her whisper.
He almost jumped in panic. “What?”
“There’s a box of dry ice here, still solid.”
“And that means . . .?” Christ, dry ice was stuff he used to see in kids’ drinks at the fairgrounds.
“Means it stayed really cold in here. It would have evaporated otherwise.”
“But that’s a good thing, right?”
She was moving slowly down the wall, looking at the stainless-steel thermos-like containers and their labels. Once again, she ignored his question until she came to a stop and pulled a container off the shelf. She held it out in front of her.
“This virus in this container killed seven billion people, Josh. It’s not a good thing.”
“Not what I meant, Doc.”
“Josh, I know what you meant. I’d been hoping for a room full of spoiled samples.”
“Yeah . . . I guess I was too.” He was surprised at his own admission.
“Where’s that leave us?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean.” She squared her shoulders up a little and just stared at him.
He knew Dr. Vance was good people. Her heart was in the right place. As for lying to Cooper, there was no way the woman would believe anything but success. She knew the power had only been off for a short period of time, and he’d already reported that the files indicated the presence of the virus.
“There’s no excuse you can think up, that Cooper will believe,” he said. He flopped his arms out to his sides. “I’ve kept her informed of the records we found.”
“I know you have. You’re going to have to do what you think is right. But if she thinks I’m going to build her a biological weapon, the bitch is crazier than I thought she was, and that’s saying something.” Naomi held the bottle out in front of her.
“It’s not that simple, Doc.”
“It’s exactly that simple.”
He took a step towards Naomi.
“Whatever you’re going to do to me, Josh, just be careful. You definitely don’t want to rip your suit in here.”
He almost laughed. It was a snapshot of the young Virginia girl he’d imagined her as. She thought he was going to hurt her, and she was concerned about his moon suit.
“Don’t think I’m not serious . . . Cooper knows there’s virus to work with.”
“I understand,” she said.
“Well?” Lisa got up, came around her desk, and sat back against the front edge. Josh was hyperaware of how close she was to him. The woman oozed sex appeal when she wanted to. A promise of things unspoken; he’d seen it before, in the early days of Charlottesville. He’d watched General Marks fall prey to it. He couldn’t fault the guy; there was no way he would have turned her down if the casual flirting had gone further. For a short moment, he wondered how far he could push it. He stopped himself; if it was going to happen, it already would have. He needed to be the guy she could trust.
“It’s a process,” he answered. “I think Dr. Vance is relearning a lot of stuff along the way.”
“Like what?”
“I mean, she’s fond of pointing out that she’s a baby doctor and had never been involved in this kind of stuff. But as far as I can tell, she’s working the problem. She said she’ll know more in ten days to two weeks.”
“Why so long?”
�
�That part I actually understand, sort of. We used to do a lot of craft beers in my place; it’s not just an issue of the right ingredients. In the case of beer, yeast only works so fast. She has to cultivate enough of the virus to be able to test it, and then attenuate it—and I have no idea what that means yet, but I’m learning.” He used the words Naomi had provided for him. He’d even practiced them in the shower.
“She had some real concerns about the virus mutating again . . .”
“Oh, she still does,” he admitted with a strong nod. “Listening to her, the more I learn, at this point—so do I. I’ve reinforced the issue of how many of our lives this is going to save. Believe me, it’s the only reason she’s doing it.”
“It’s the best argument for it,” Lisa agreed. “If there were another way, rest assured we’d be doing it.”
“Well, we’re the guinea pigs and going into lockdown tomorrow. So, I’ll have to report by radio from here on out.”
“What!”
“The only way to be sure we aren’t producing a virus that has mutated into something that will kill us, is to work with the live virus. She’s the only one who can do that. At this point, I’m the only one who understands what she’s doing well enough to mind her.”
“Christ, she’s the only doctor we have! Can’t she use somebody from the stadium as a guinea pig?”
Thank you for your heartfelt concern for my sorry ass! “We can’t live in the moon suits for the next two weeks. Dr. Vance says the chance for a mutation isn’t negligible, but the odds of any variation happening in a direction that would be harmful to us is remote.”
“She’d better be right.” Lisa shook her head and then looked back down at him, seeming to see him once again. “My God, for your sake too.”
Nice recovery. Naomi was right; the woman was a sociopath. Like most guys, he’d been taken in by the package and spent too much time staring at her tits to notice.
Cooper moved back around her desk quickly, as if she’d suddenly realized that he might already be carrying something. “You be sure to stay in constant contact, and if there is anything you need, just ask. We don’t have a higher priority right now.”
He stood up to leave and before turning back; “on that note, we have to keep the hospital’s backup generator running. I heard that one of the diesel tanks was destroyed the night of their attack. We good on that score? There’s zero chance of this working without some of that equipment.”
He could tell Cooper didn’t like the question. “The highway to the west is still open. We’re bringing in some tankers from a depot off I-81. Stay on the radio, and keep me updated.”
*
Chapter 22
Farmer put down the radio. “That was Poy. He’s got the convoy turning onto 64 at Staunton and headed this way. Twelve miles, figure fifteen minutes or less.”
Jason looked at the team he’d brought with him. All the Marines, minus Jon Bruce. Pavel was dragging the last of the Jersey barriers into place with one of the JLTVs and a heavy chain. Reed and half a dozen of his team rounded out the fourteen people he had with him. The barrier only had to be enough to stop the fuel convoy, or at a minimum slow it down to the point they could safely target it. He didn’t like the idea of shooting at tanker trucks full of diesel any more than he imagined those riding in the enemy convoy were going to like it. Skirjanek had left I-64, west of the town, available to the enemy in the hopes they’d try to use it, and they had.
It had taken Charlottesville four days since the fight on the freeway to risk a fuel run. Skirjanek’s scouts had watched the convoy pull out and head west the day before. The drone had tracked them to a fuel depot south of Staunton off I-81. The colonel had marked the location of the depot for later use, and Jason and his team had spent the previous night navigating back roads south of I-64 to bypass Charlottesville and set up this ambush for the convoy’s return trip. The highway here was raised over the rural interchange and surface roads; the trucks wouldn’t be able to go off-road.
“Where do you want us?” Rachel asked. Pro was standing next to her, balancing her rifle off his good shoulder. He pointed east at the overpass where the Blue Ridge Parkway crossed the interstate.
“Up there, but over the westbound lanes, not this one. There’s some cover there.”
Rachel nodded at them both and jerked her chin at Pro. “You heard him, let’s go.”
Pro had begged to be allowed to accompany the ambush team, but he was still unhappy that his role was going to be limited to spotting for Rachel.
“Might as well be a mule,” Pro complained as he turned and started walking. Rachel rolled her eyes. “A mule would complain less,” she whispered.
“I can hear you,” Pro shouted back over his shoulder.
Rachel looked at him and shook her head. “Be careful?”
“Always.”
He watched her walk away, glad that the two of them would be far enough from the makeshift roadblock to be safe should the bad guys do something stupid. If they were stupid, Rachel would be doing more than watching.
“The kid’s a handful.” Farmer laughed to himself.
Jason shook his head. Pro wasn’t sixteen years old yet, and the teenager had already been shot twice, concussed, kidnapped, made a slave, and hunted. He worried that Pro was enjoying his own legend a little too much, to the point the kid felt he needed to feed it. “You have no idea.”
“You going to let him join the Marines?”
Jason smiled back at Farmer. Skirjanek and Bruce were already well into the planning stages of a volunteer force among their own people and any of the Tysons crowd who wanted to join what they hoped would be a real fighting force, beyond the rough collection of civilians they had now. The colonel had already fleshed out the plans for setting up a very basic boot camp where the volunteers could learn how to be proper soldiers or Marines as the training cadre was almost entirely Marine. It was a good plan, and one that was going to have to wait until they had some breathing room, but they had already filled the first class of forty. Pro’s name had been the first one on the list.
“He informed me that I didn’t have a choice.” Jason laughed to himself. “He had a whole prepared speech about how he should be considered a legal adult and I didn’t actually have any authority to stop him. I think I confused him when I told him I thought it was a wonderful idea.”
“We’ll see what he thinks after a week under Gunny, I mean Captain Bruce.”
He glanced back up the road to watch what family he had remaining, walk away.
“I assume Rachel told you I asked her if she’d join me for a drink when we were at The Hole? I had no idea you two . . .”
“Farmer.”
“I mean, if I had, I wouldn’t have.”
“Relax.” He swatted the Marine on the shoulder. “She told me; and if she’d been offended, which she wasn’t, you’d have known it right then and there.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Farmer smiled to himself. “I just didn’t want there to be anything hanging out there between us.”
“Lucas.” He pulled his eyes back in from looking down the highway in the direction the convoy would approach from. “There isn’t, forget about it.”
Farmer held up both hands in surrender. “Done.”
“OK, get on the radio and confirm with Poy that it’s still just the two tankers and two escort vehicles. Who knows how many people they already had out and about before we shut them down?”
He watched Lucas out of the corner of his eye; the young Marine was solid. Lucas fit anyone’s definition of a “good guy,” and he was only a year or two older than Rachel. He liked Lucas enough to almost feel guilty. He was nearly the old man he felt like some mornings, and he still talked to ghosts in his dreams. He’d said as much to Rachel a couple of nights past, leaving out the ghosts. He’d been shocked at her anger. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise; the apocalypse hadn’t improved his understanding of women one iota.
“Same two Humvees, l
ead and follow,” Farmer relayed back to him.
Both of the escort Humvees had M240 machine guns on roof mounts. If the assclowns crewing the guns got cocky, this could get messy. That was his big worry. It would be easier to hit the convoy hard, but they had all bought into Skirjanek’s long game of trying to win hearts and minds, and that meant trying to kill as few of these people as they could. They all assumed the tankers were transporting diesel for the generators supplementing the massive solar farm that Charlottesville had constructed; if they were wrong, and the tankers were carrying gasoline, the degree of difficulty went way up.
“Alright, get everyone in position.” He picked up his own radio. “Reed, your team ready?”
“Reed here, we’re ready.”
“Copy, remember, don’t let them see you until we’ve stopped them.”
“Copy.”
It was almost ten minutes later when Reed radioed back. “They just passed our position, two tankers, one Hummer leading, the other following. Pulling out in two minutes.”
The freeway between Reed’s initial position and their roadblock crawled up the western slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains, though from his perspective, having grown up out west, these were just hills. Beautiful, heavily forested, and standing out above the plains on either side, but hills just the same. Given the steady grade the trucks would be pulling against, he didn’t figure they’d be moving that fast.
They heard the tractor trailers downshifting before the first Humvee appeared, coming around the curve. Whoever was driving the lead vehicle acted quicker than he would have liked. Having seen the Jersey barriers, someone in that lead vehicle had to have been on the radio immediately. The air was split by the sound of air brakes and squealing tires as the second tanker truck appeared already slowing. The follow vehicle came around the corner a second later and didn’t slow, as it swung around the two trucks and joined the lead vehicle. Its own brakes locked up, and it came to a skidding stop next to its twin. Both machine guns on the roof mount were manned and swiveling, looking for a target.
Seasons of Man | Book 2 | Reap What You Sow Page 22