Plaguesville, USA

by Jim LaVigne

  Justin instinctively threw up his hands and saw the others make similar gestures of surrender. Stunned, he looked from one of the newcomers to the next in a bewildered fashion and then heard himself talking.

  “We give up!” he pleaded. “Don’t hurt anyone, please, whoever you are. We surrender.”

  None of the invaders said anything for a long, tense moment. Justin, facing down an enormous, glowering man with a double-barreled shotgun, saw the man’s finger, clad in a black glove, tighten on the trigger. Desperately, he tried again, his voice cracked and dry.

  “Please, we give up,” he said, addressing the big man directly. “Don’t hurt anyone.”

  “Who are you?” asked the big man, his unaccented American voice like a truckload of gravel. “An’ what’re you doin’ down here?”

  “We, uh, we,” Justin stammered, his mental wheels spinning all over again, “that is…” What was he supposed to say? Suddenly he hadn’t a clue. The truth was so strange as to be unbelievable, and any lie he might concoct would surely sound as false. And who were these people, anyway? What were they doing down here? For what seemed like an eternity, he stood there and blinked and tried to make his brain think of something, but it was as if his mind had suddenly put up a “back in fifteen minutes” sign and gone to lunch. Then good old Mr. Lampert came to the rescue.

  “We’re prisoners, asshole,” he said, hands laced over his bald head. “Get it? Whatcha might call unwilling party guests, you know? Now, are you gonna lower them guns or just shoot us where we stand?”

  There was another few seconds of tension, both sides eyeing each other, before one of the invaders called out in an authoritative voice:

  “Relax, everyone,” the man shouted. “At ease. These are just normal people.”

  “Yes,” said Justin, nodding inanely at the large man before him. “That’s it exactly! Normal! Very, very normal.”

  And with that, the attackers shifted to paying Justin and his companions no more attention than the tables and chairs. The big man who’d had a shotgun leveled at Justin’s face simply shrugged and walked away, and soon most of the newcomers were loudly debating with each other, guarding the main tunnels, checking their gear, marveling at the crazy decorations and evidence of violence, and generally ignoring Justin and the others.

  Standing there with his hands still up, nonplussed in the extreme, Justin heard a voice and turned to find a smallish man, about his own age, dark and thin, with one of the strange flashlights in hand, smiling at him through his helmet visor.

  “Hi there!” said the stranger, offering a gloved hand. “Sorry about all of that, but we can’t be too careful. My name’s Santiago.”

  “Kaes,” said Justin mechanically. “Justin Kaes.” Numbly, he lowered his hands and then shook with the man. “Who are you people? What are doing here?”

  The other man laughed, showing strong white teeth. “Oh, that’s one hell of a long story, mister,” he said jovially. “And right now, me and the others here are kinda busy. But don’t you worry. Soon as we’re done, we’ll get all you people out of here. OK? Now, can you tell me, is there anybody else left alive down here? Any more survivors like you?”

  “Yes, there are. Teresa, and the others. Maybe more, I don’t know.”

  “Who is Teresa?” asked Santiago. “And where is she?”

  As he explained, dazedly babbling in short, barely-connected sentences that he could only hope were making sense, some obtuse, bitter part of Justin couldn’t help, despite everything, but wonder that very thing: Who was Teresa?

  Chapter Fifty-Four

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  The Hunter had sat in exactly seven courtrooms in the days Before, once charged with murder, twice with assault, and four times as a witness for the other side, and for some reason he felt the very same way now. Maybe it was the way they all looked at him, kind of suspicious and leery, or maybe it was the sheer number of them, something like a couple dozen, or even the setting, in an abandoned movie theater, but for whatever reason, he felt like this was some kind of a trial, or at the least, a hearing.

  He’d woken up in a bed, of all things, starting up and almost hitting his head on an overhead bunk. Some kind of barracks, it had seemed like; foot lockers, bunk beds, empty weapon racks. Taking inventory, he’d found that he was still beat-up, achy and tired, not to mention very hungry and thirsty, but otherwise no worse off than could be expected.

  He’d lain there for about an hour when someone—some thin Hispanic guy named Santiago—finally came to check on him and he was clued in to where he was, back in New America. In an underground bunker beneath an old warehouse on the city’s south side, to be exact, but the salient fact was New America. As to who they were, these kindly strangers, Santiago wouldn’t say, telling the Hunter as he examined his various wounds that he’d have to wait and see.

  Content for the moment, dry and warm, he’d shrugged and lay back on the bunk. After some minor rearranging of bandages, Santiago had left him, and a short while later an older fellow with big teeth brought him a jug of water and a bowl of fried tofu. Feeling a bit better after the meal and a short nap, he’d been led through some dimly-lit hallways and through some doors and into the relatively cavernous space of an old-fashioned movie theater, complete with rocker seats, asbestos curtain, raised dais and all. For the occasion, the house lights were on and, considering that it had been a long time since he’d seen so many people all in one place, the room seemed absolutely crammed. A podium of sorts, an old jukebox covered with a thick drape, sat center stage, and other than the low hum of individual conversations, the big room was quiet.

  Feeling ridiculously conspicuous in his filthy gunny-sack tunic, the Hunter was led to the front row of seats and bidden to sit, right next to a tough-looking broad they called Still, who grinned at him wolfishly and made a point of showing him the row of gleaming throwing knives around her waist. Watch it, you, they glittered at him; one wrong move and we’ll be more than happy to embed ourselves all over your skinny ass. He got the message and tried to sit back and relax and give them no reason to leave their sheaths. There was a pause as they all quieted down, and the Hunter used the opportunity to swivel in his seat and take a long look at each of them.

  The CDC group, what was left of it, looked physically better, as they’d been given new clothes and allowed the use of bathing facilities, but as far as their relative wellness went, the Hunter had to say they were a mixed bag. The Old Man seemed well enough for his age, or at least about the same, while the com whiz, Swails, had a wild, jumpy sort of look in her eyes, the kind where you could see the whole of the iris, that told him that she was far from recovered from their time among the mutants. The nurse, Cass, seemed her old self, stolid and sort of bland, and the banger girl, Teresa, hadn’t changed, aside from a black eye and a somewhat more subdued attitude. The Kid, on the other hand (bless his feral little heart), seemed quite ill at ease, fidgeting and staring apprehensively at Teresa; likely he was just not used to this amount of human interaction.

  The last of the group, Dr. Kaes, was much harder to read. His face was lined and creased, but there was a bright twinkle in his eyes and a slight smile on his lips. He was thin, almost emaciated, but this only emphasized a sense of sharpness and acuity, like a knife honed to perfection. A stark streak of white had sprouted in his dark hair, but it only made him seem more dashing and dangerous. Did he look better or worse than when the Hunter had first seen him, way back in St Louis? It was hard to say. One thing was sure though, the man was changed. This was certainly not the bumbling, flabby egghead he’d first encountered.

  On the other side of the aisle (literally, as they were roughly so divided in seating) were the New Americans. Santiago he knew, of course, and the big guy looked familiar. He’d been introduced to the o
thers, as well, including the woman sitting next to him with the knives, but none of them had made much of an impression. All in all, they seemed like a pretty average cross-section of Old American society.

  There were also a few wild cards, so to speak, in the other folks they’d rescued from the mutants. There was CJ, of course, and his new pal Seymour, plus five more former Army members who’d been rotting in the mines. These people, physical attributes aside, all seemed alike; beat-up, skinny, hard-eyed, and grimly focused. They had seen too much and the world the rest of us called reality had become something like a cruel joke. He’d seen the same look in the eyes of an old friend of his who’d done three tours in the Indonesian War. In other words, they were soldiers.

  Then, once things had settled down, they all started to talk. And talk and talk and talk. For his part, the Hunter simply sat and listened. The first one up was the amateur doctor, the leader-type guy, Santiago, who walked to the podium and called for attention.

  “OK, so,” he said self-consciously, clearing his throat, “for those of you who don’t know, my name is Santiago. And these folks,” he gestured to a group down to his left, “are the Reformist Council of New America. I guess I should say welcome, or something, but then not all of you are technically here by choice, so let’s just say that I hope you’re all comfortable and on the mend and everything. Now, I believe that we have a lot to discuss. In fact, from the little I’ve learned from Dr. Kaes here, I think there may be a whole hell of a lot. So…”

  And so the CDC group went through the whole thing, from start to finish. Mostly Dr. Kaes did the narration, but the Old Man injected himself often enough, as ever, and the nurse and the com specialist also threw in from time to time. The Hunter knew most of the tale, but he still listened with amazement as they described the trek from New Atlanta, all the way north to Minneapolis, then south again, through fire and flood, cannibals, nuclear accidents and homicidal gangs, surrounded and beset by death and madness. It made for quite a story, he had to admit.

  And to be honest, it made him feel somewhat ashamed. To have derailed these poor saps, just when they’d been so close? And for what? But this wasn’t really the time to think about it, he decided, and kept his features flat as he listened.

  Finally, Kaes sort of sputtered out, relating their recent misfortunes with the deformos, and then asked if anyone had any questions. Undoubtedly stunned and a bit overloaded by the doctor’s story, everyone sat silent for a little while before one of the Council members, an older man in a tweed suit, finally spoke up.

  “Um, if I may?” he said, standing up. Kaes turned to him. “Er, hello. I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Hollis Landrip, but everyone here calls me the Professor. I, uh, used to be a biology teacher Before. Anyway, I was wondering about the mutative nature of the virus, this idea of its genetic adaptability…”

  What followed then was a long boring technical discussion, most of which the Hunter couldn’t begin to understand, but the gist of which was fairly clear: If they didn’t get the living, breathing Old Man to California, where they still had the wherewithal to make a cure, the human race itself would be dead and gone in somewhere between 20 and 100 years. And the Old Man was getting closer to death with every second. All in all, a pretty dire and depressing gist, even to someone like the Hunter.

  When they’d hashed out all of the little details about how the Sick worked and how it could be cured, they again sort of wound down and sat in silence for a moment. Then the Council leader, Santiago, cleared his throat, thanked Doctor Kaes, who returned to his seat, and went back up to the podium.

  “Well…” he said, obviously at a loss for words. “That was all very enlightening. And, for a lot of us, it’s what they call news. Real bad news! I mean, we all thought that the Sick had run its course. Shot its wad, so to speak, and now we’d just, you know, pick up and move on. Start all over again. But now, you tell us how it’ll come back?! Hell, I won’t lie to you, it scares the living shit outta me! You know?”

  There was a general murmur of miserable agreement.

  “Yeah,” said Santiago, with a sigh. “But it looks like we—and by we I mean all of us, the whole damn species—still have an ace up our sleeves, Mr. Lampert here. The trouble is, he’s here and the facilities are in Frisco. So the big question is how do we get him there, right? Right. And it ain’t gonna be easy.”

  “But before we start discussing that, I think we ought to take a minute to fill you CDC folks in on what we’ve had going on here in good old New America. Because, if you ask me, the only way we’re going to get Lampert to Frisco is to use certain resources that only the Governor can provide. And he’s not gonna provide ‘em willingly, if you know what I mean.”

  And so next the Hunter sat through a history of New America, from its inception and founding by Jackson Armstrong to its growth and organization, right up to the present state of repression and constant war with the mutants. Again, the Hunter knew almost all of this and paid only partial attention to the whole thing, although it did clear up where he’d seen the big dude before. And imagine, the former Deputy Chief of Police! Things must have gotten pretty bad in NA for him to have gone over! It made the Hunter all the more chagrined that he’d been thinking of handing the Old Man to someone that could inspire that kind of disloyalty and polarization. But then, how could he have known? He’d been out on the road, chasing Kaes and the Old Man all over God’s creation, how could he have known the Governor and the PF had gone all Nazi?

  Of course, Kaes and his companions had a lot of questions, once Santiago (and a couple of the other Council members) finished their end of the story, and the Hunter again waited as they were told all about the War, the Reformist movement, and all of the vagaries of life in New America. They ended up with their latest victories, first over the PF, in that they had recently assassinated Chief Hanson Knox, and then over the deformos, against whom they had deployed their newest, best weapon, a very high-powered, hand-held, ultraviolet sort of flashlight gizmo that apparently worked on the muties’ atrophied eyeballs like a blowtorch on butter.

  Through all of this, of course, thanks to his involvement one way or another in some of these events, many a hard look was directed at the Hunter. And when they’d finished talking about how they’d all gotten there and all about the Sick and everything, they turned to him. Santiago did the talking.

  “Which still leaves this gentleman,” he said, waving at the Hunter like he was a lamp or a dog or something.

  “What about me?” asked the Hunter evenly.

  “Well,” said Santiago, scratching his head, “it’s just that you sort of force us to make a decision. About you, I mean. We can’t really hold you here or anything; we have no legal authority. But then again, laws and all of that are kind of touch and go these days, so then again, who’s to say we don’t? I guess we could just let you go, send you on your way, but somehow that doesn’t seem right, either. What does everyone think? What should we do with him?”

  At first no one spoke and the Hunter waited, feeling their stares, until finally one of the Council members, a little black man with a loud voice, spoke up.

  “This dude gotta name?” he asked. “I mean, we can’t jus’ call him “him” alla time, can we? Hell, for that matter, we don’t know squat about this dude, one way or another!”

  All eyes swiveled back to him and the Hunter scowled slightly. “My name’s Shipman,” he said, staring back. “Jack Shipman.”

  “Well there ya go,” said the black guy. “That’s a start, right? So what else? Obviously you’re some kinda mercenary or somethin’. What were ya Before, Mr. Shipman?”

  Uncomfortable, the Hunter shifted in his seat. “I was a bounty hunter,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation. “Still am, for that matter.”

  “Ah ha,” said Santiago, nodding. “And you were hired by the Governor, right? But to do what, exactly?”

  “Grab the Old Man,” said the Hunter laconically, “an’ bring him to
New America.”

  “Of course,” said Santiago, nodding. “And then the Governor would… what? We don’t have the facilities here to create a vaccine, so what was he going to do with Mr. Lampert?”

  “Sell him,” said the Hunter, with a slight shrug. “Vend him off to the highest bidder. Most likely these folks out in Frisco, I guess.”

  Apparently this was a little too much for the CDC com specialist, Swails, who now stood up and, eyes bulging, loudly interrupted.

  “I can’t believe,” she said hotly, “that you’re seriously listening to this guy! He’s nothing less than a murderer! A kidnapper and a thief and a murderer! I say we lock him up and throw the key into the ocean!”

  “OK, OK,” said Santiago, patting the air. “Just take it easy, alright? We all heard about what he did.”

  Swails scowled and was obviously ready with more, but nurse Cass and Doctor Kaes calmed her down and got her to take her seat, where she muttered and continued to glare daggers. Santiago turned back to the group.

  “The issue here,” he said expansively, “as far as I’m concerned, is not what he’s done. After all, most of us here have killed someone since the Fall. Or we’ve been involved in helping someone else to kill someone. Either way, if this was Before, we’d all be up on murder charges. I mean, it’s nothing any of us is proud of, but this isn’t Before, is it? This is now, and that means survival, plain and simple. We don’t have the luxury of thinking in terms of Pre-Fall law and order, mainly because law and order are gone! Caught the Sick and died, so to speak. So the idea that we can judge this man, whatever his actions, isn’t really something we probably wanna get into. We don’t have time to argue philosophy.”