He wondered if he’d ever be able to cry again, and if he’d survive the eruption if he did.
“That’s all of them.” Nico dropped the bushel basket full of squashes at the end of the row. “I don’t think we’re going to get any more out of this harvest.”
“Great. Can you start putting away the stuff we’ve already finished canning in the storehouse?” Marc asked, eyeballing the baskets.
“No, I’m pretty sure that’s outside the realm of my capabilities. Unlike the rest of you, I didn’t go through basic training, and thus, I’m woefully underqualified for fetching, carrying, and menial kitchen labor.” Nico tossed Marc a jaunty grin and crossed the industrial kitchen to begin loading jars of stewed squash into crates.
Nearby, other Jugs worked industriously to preserve the last yields of the harvest. Out in the gardens and fields, almost all of the plants were bare and beginning to die. Heaving a crate up onto his shoulder, Nico paused by Marc, who was acting as Sierra Company’s supply officer. “Any word on whether we’re going to get permission to go out scavenging for more livestock?”
“We’re working on it,” Marc said softly, and gestured Nico to continue on his way.
Nico pressed his lips together at the dismissal. He’d been at the repurposed prison the CDC was using for a quarantine facility for almost five weeks now, and very few people had warmed to him. Marc was coming around, but most of the Jugs were still acting like he was a spy. Upon his arrival, Nico had spent days being questioned by high-ranking personnel—not from the CDC, but from the 1st Juggernaut Battalion itself—all of whom wanted to know how he’d come to be infected with the Alpha strain and why he’d been sent to Atlanta.
Nico hadn’t bothered lying. He had nothing to hide. He’d told them everything he knew about McClosky, and everything McClosky had told him about Project Juggernaut. He’d confessed his role in getting the operation green-lit, and about the ampule McClosky had given him.
He wasn’t sure if they believed him, but they’d eventually assigned him to Sierra Company and put him to work. That didn’t mean the others had welcomed him with open arms, however. The overwhelming sense he got from the Jugs was that they were a tight-knit group whose morale was incredibly low. There had been several suicides since Nico had arrived—hanging being the preferred method, since it was bloodless and put no one at risk—and he’d overheard enough to make it clear that these were just the tail end of a rash of suicides that had swept through the battalion after news of what the Beta strain was doing to the world had reached the Jugs.
Nico couldn’t exactly blame them. The Army hadn’t explained to them, when it administered the Alpha strain of the Bane virus, that they would never be allowed to return to civilian life once their enlistment ended. They would never be allowed to retire. Their families were almost certainly dead, and even if they had surviving family, they’d never be able to live with them for the same reason Nico couldn’t live with Zach. The only options they had now were death or quarantine. The ones who didn’t choose the former kept occupied with 1st Juggernaut’s massive provisioning requirements, where Nico worked alongside them, trying to find his place.
A great deal of the land surrounding the prison had been cultivated and planted the previous spring. Huge farms made the gardens in the pens at Colorado Springs look pathetic. As a result, Nico finally had sufficient rations and was rebuilding some of the body mass he’d lost during his months quarantined with Zach. There was a push to gather more livestock for milk, eggs, and meat, but they had to receive permission from their COs to leave the quarantine facility to scavenge, and that was being doled out sparingly.
Why, Nico had no idea. It wasn’t like there was anyone left to infect.
The storehouse Marc had sent him to was a massive building in the middle of the various cellblocks. Thick brick walls and semi-underground construction kept it nicely climate controlled with a minimal use of the CDC’s fuel cells. The Jugs had done as much as they possibly could with what they had available. They were keenly focused on provisioning, even beyond what seemed necessary for the upcoming winter.
When Nico reached the bottom of the steps leading into the underground storehouse, a crash from somewhere deep inside made him nearly drop his crate. He heard the unmistakable sound of glass shattering.
Fuck! The supplies! He set his crate off to the side and broke into a sprint, searching for the source of the devastation before they lost any more desperately needed rations.
He had expected to find shelves collapsing or unbalanced stacks of jars. But as he rounded the end of a row of shelves, an agonized shriek made him jump out of his skin, followed by a torrent of harsh, painful-sounding sobs.
At the other end of the aisle, he found a woman who looked to be of Mediterranean descent, dressed in the same jumpsuit everyone in quarantine here wore and restraining another woman, who had freckles, a pale complexion, and titian hair. The redhead was struggling as if she wanted to do more damage. The evidence of her rampage was scattered around her, but she calmed as Nico watched, slumping to the concrete floor and weeping. It was a noise Nico had become used to in Colorado Springs, the sound of someone who had just lost a loved one. But he’d always heard it from a distance before, from one of the other pens. He’d never been slapped in the face with such savage and immediate grief.
The olive-skinned woman with the long braid wrapped her arms around the redhead, murmuring disjointed words of comfort. She looked shaken herself, but her dark eyes were dry when she opened them and saw Nico standing there.
“Can I help?” he asked as softly and unobtrusively as he could.
“Go out to the fields. Look for a Hawaiian man named Kaleo. He’s with Delta Company. Tell him Xolani says Schuyler needs him. Tell him Hope is dying this afternoon.”
It took Nico a moment to realize that Hope was a name and not a concept, but he nodded and took off for the fields.
Locating Kaleo wasn’t difficult. What was harder was seeing the way his face turned gray when Nico quoted the message the woman had given him. The way his eyes flashed with tears. The way every other member of Delta Company in the fields formed up behind him like an escort as he took off for the storehouse at a sprint. Unsure what to do with himself after delivering his message, Nico followed in their wake.
The group stopped outside and let Kaleo proceed alone. The half dozen or so men and women who had left the fields were grimly silent. One of them, a solidly built person whose collar was embroidered with a small transgender symbol, indicating he identified as male, looked like he was on the verge of tears himself.
“Hey, Jamie.” A short, wiry man made his way through the small crowd to stand at the distressed man’s side, squeezing his shoulder. “It’s okay, dude.”
Jamie shrugged and wiped his face. “I guess. At least we found out before you donated for me, huh?”
“You’ll still get to have the family you want, man. We’ll find a way. Maybe when we get out of here, you can adopt—”
“Adopt who?” Jamie scoffed. “Everyone out there’s dead.”
The shorter man shot a look in Nico’s direction, and Jamie followed suit, as if they only just realized whose company they were in. “You’re the new guy, aren’t you?” he asked. “I’m Toby.”
“Nico.” He wiped his hand on his jumpsuit and accepted Toby’s proffered handshake. “And yeah, I guess I’m the new guy.”
Toby nodded an acknowledgment. “Cool. This is Jamie. And those people over there are Luis, Darius, Gina, and Titus. You saw Kaleo, and I’ll venture a guess that you ran into Schuyler and Xolani down in the storehouse.”
Nico made note of the others’ names and faces, but they were either off in their own thoughts or conferring softly with their heads together, taking no notice of him. “Um, do you mind if I ask . . . what’s going on? Is everything— Well, I mean, obviously everything’s not okay, but—”
Before he could stop stammering and complete the thought, the doors to the storehouse op
ened. Kaleo and Xolani appeared, Schuyler leaning heavily on Kaleo between them. Both their faces were wet. Kaleo escorted Schuyler toward the infirmary while Xolani paused to speak with the men Toby had identified as Darius and Luis.
“It’s confirmed. The Alpha antibodies didn’t pass through the placental barrier. Hope started showing a rash this morning, which turned to lesions after a couple hours.” She kept her voice low, but they were all clustered closely enough to overhear. The three of them, who seemed to be the leaders, fell into step, heading in the direction of the infirmary after Schuyler and Kaleo. The rest of the Delta Company Jugs, plus Nico, followed suit.
Nico’s belly churned. “Hope’s their baby?” he asked Toby, keeping his voice as soft as he could manage.
Toby nodded, his eyes shining and his lashes spiky. Jamie looked just as grief stricken. “She was born four weeks ago. We knew this could happen, but we were hoping— Well, hence her name.”
“How did she get infected?” Nico inquired. He remembered McClosky remarking that they had no idea what effect being infected with Alpha would have on pregnant women.
“Didn’t have the surgical equipment for a bloodless C-section,” Jamie answered in Toby’s stead. His voice was hollow, and his face bleak. “She was exposed the moment she was born. Which means, thanks to what those fuckers at the Pentagon did to us, any of us who ever wanted kids are shit out of luck.”
“Obviously, Jamie here is one of those,” Toby added with a nod. “But Schuyler . . . She was only a few months away from getting out of the Army when they transferred us to the Juggernaut Battalion, and all she could talk about was how she was going to settle down and have a house full of babies. None of us knew when they gave us that damn virus that it meant we were never getting out.”
The grim vigil the group had begun at the storehouse continued outside the infirmary for the next hour. Nico wondered if he should excuse himself, but he felt like turning his back on this—especially after the part he’d played in making it happen—would be uncaring. More and more members of Delta Company joined their comrades, trickling in in small groups. There were dozens of them standing with their heads bowed, some with tears on their cheeks, when Kaleo and Schuyler finally reappeared, clinging to each other, devastation clear on their faces.
That night, almost the entire two-thousand-troop Juggernaut Battalion gathered in the exercise yard. They carried every piece of wood they could find—broken furniture from the warden’s office, shattered crates, deadfall from a nearby greenbelt past the fields—and they built a pyre, unconcerned with the scavenged kerosene they wasted to ignite it. Schuyler herself laid the tiny, blanket-wrapped bundle atop it, and Kaleo lit the match.
Delta Company stood nearest to the fire, with Schuyler at the middle. She still looked grief stricken but also absolutely livid. Fury burned deep within her eyes, and the reflection of the flames only made it that much more intense. Part of Nico wanted to go to her and beg her forgiveness for the minor and unwitting part he’d played in her tragedy, but he didn’t dare.
Nico ran into Kaleo a lot after that. He hadn’t ever noticed him before, but they worked together frequently in the kitchens and fields. At first, Kaleo was withdrawn and quiet, but as weeks passed, what emerged was a generally jovial guy with an irrepressible grin and an eagerness to find the absurdity in everything. He responded warmly to Nico’s hesitant attempts to strike up conversation.
Other than Kaleo, most of Nico’s contact with the Jugs was contained to Sierra Company. They were good people but still standoffish. Nico wondered if it was his involvement with McClosky and the origins of Project Juggernaut that kept them from welcoming him, because no matter what he did, there was always an undercurrent of suspicion and resentment in their attitudes. Or maybe they just didn’t know what to make of a civilian who had somehow become infected with the Alpha strain.
“They need to start fucking training you, for one thing,” Kaleo had snorted when Nico mentioned feeling like he had no place with the Jugs. Nico opened his mouth to mention his extensive self-defense training, but Kaleo didn’t allow him to get a word in. That was how conversations tended to go with Kaleo. “Doesn’t matter how you ended up becoming one of us. You’re here now, and we’ve got to deal with that. Next time you don’t have anything to do, come out to the yard and we’ll work out. I’ll start teaching you some basics.”
For obvious reasons, the Jugs didn’t have weapons, but those who weren’t struggling with depression—and some who were fighting to overcome it—worked hard to keep fit, a large part of which involved hand-to-hand sparring. The following afternoon, Nico joined them. Straight-faced, he nodded as Kaleo walked him through a proper fighting stance.
“Don’t worry,” Kaleo said reassuringly. “I won’t go all out on you yet. Just try to attack me.”
Nico nodded and waited for Kaleo’s signal, then feinted at Kaleo’s head. While Kaleo was blocking that, Nico swept his feet out from underneath him. Kaleo went down with a curse, staring up in astonishment as Nico paused over him with a fist drawn back, ready to drive it into his face. The action in the courtyard came to a complete stop. Until Kaleo laughed, Nico half feared they were going to attack him for dropping one of their own, especially Kaleo.
“Holy fuck!” Kaleo hooted, and everyone relaxed. Nico had the sense that they indulged Kaleo’s tolerance of him only in the interest of permitting Kaleo anything that might lessen his grief over the loss of his and Schuyler’s daughter. “What were you before the pandemic?”
Nico grinned and offered him a hand up. “A rentboy.”
Kaleo laughed at that and quickly gave up teaching Nico the basics. Though the element of surprise was on his side for that first attack, Nico was desperately out of practice and out of shape, and he and Kaleo settled in to sparring companionably. The workout felt good, though Nico’s muscles soon started protesting.
“So,” Kaleo panted when they flopped down onto the lawn for a breather. “Turns out what you actually need is weapons practice. Which we can’t really give you.”
“I learned a little this spring.” Nico shrugged awkwardly. “Maybe not enough to really consider myself qualified, but what does it matter? Even if we had weapons, who would we use them against?”
Kaleo’s omnipresent grin faded, and his eyes flicked toward the walls surrounding the yard for an instant. Which were always absent of guards, a fact Nico found bizarre. He’d seen very little indication that anyone was around to actually enforce the Jugs’ quarantine, with the exception of the CDC researchers working on a vaccine. “Guess you never know.”
Nico dropped his voice to a murmur. “What does that mean?”
Kaleo narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think I’ll answer that yet. I kinda like you. I’m not really keen to kill you just now.”
After that, Nico spent a lot more time watching the interplay between the Jugs and the CDC personnel. There were obviously troops here who weren’t Jugs, but it seemed like they were no longer acting as guards. Maybe they, too, had come to the conclusion that there was no reason to keep the Jugs prisoner when there was no one left for them to infect. Instead, they worked together to lay away provisions for the upcoming winter, which they would all need to survive, and the Jugs came and went as their COs commanded, voluntarily abiding by their quarantine.
The Jug COs and medics regularly conferred with the research and medical staff to make sure that the Juggernaut Battalion had everything they needed to stay healthy and active. As fall faded into winter, rumors circulated that the Jugs might be recalled to active duty, speculation that was met with a combination of excitement and consternation.
“Active duty doing what?” Nico demanded while he and Kaleo sparred, as they did every other day, regardless of the weather. “I mean, I guess I can see using us to clean up whatever’s left of the cities. God, when we were crossing the country, Zach and I had to go through St. Louis. It was terrifying, and I’m not just talking about the revenants. Even the small towns—”<
br />
Kaleo was giving him that amused look he sometimes wore, like Nico was missing something. “We’re not going anywhere but Colorado,” he said with finality.
“Colorado?” Nico ignored the pulse in his chest that might as well have screamed Zach! and tried to focus on what Kaleo was telling him, or not telling him. “Why would they bring us to Colorado?”
“Didn’t say they were gonna bring us to Colorado.” Kaleo launched into a dizzying combination of hits and kicks that landed Nico on his back in the mud. “I said that’s the only place we’re going. Now shut up and fight.”
Nights were the worst. Especially in the winter when the weather was too inclement to go outside for long and the darkness seemed to last forever. Wild winter hurricanes battered them even this far inland, adding the constant sense of being under siege to the cabin fever.
After over a year in seclusion with one another, with no foreseeable opportunity to get out and especially knowing that most—if not all—of their partners and spouses were dead, the Jugs were pairing off. Some had settled into long-term relationships, like Kaleo and Schuyler. Others just hooked up for the night. With the disparity in numbers between Jug men and women, many of the men who would have been otherwise inclined had chosen the route of opportunist bisexuality. And thanks to the utter lack of privacy, none of them were shy about where they indulged their need for companionship.
Nico saw them with one another or heard their moans and grunts and the slapping of their flesh in the dark, and he ached for Zach. For the first time since puberty, he had no desire to partake in the sexual escapades of the people surrounding him. The loneliness and the need to touch someone and be touched was still there, and as the Jugs slowly began to warm toward him, Nico had offers to indulge it, especially once word about his former occupation got around. If he accepted those offers, the emptiness would ease for a while, but it wouldn’t be the same as it had been with Zach. It would be a cheap, unsatisfactory substitute, and he couldn’t find any motivation to act on the urge for even that superficial relief.
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