by Addison Gunn
Alex pulled the flap shut and tapped his ear. “Go!”
The motor roared to life, and quickly, the vessel drifted away from the dock and dropped backwards out into the choppy sea.
“Morland,” Alex said, rushing past Sam and the Infected and bounding up the stairs. “You’re on lookout for predators.”
The trip only took a matter of minutes, but felt much longer. In the ferry, the ocean hadn’t seemed as rocky, but on the lifeboat they rose and fell with every passing wave.
A couple of the Infected grew ill, vomiting onto the deck. After surviving the trip to Baltimore, the attack on the research facility, an escape, and now this—Sam’s guilt was getting the better of her.
Disgusted, the wounded soldier—Doyle—hobbled up the steps and remained there, along with the rest of Alex’s troop, for the remainder of the journey.
The boat drove right up to the cruise liner, where it was pulled up with cranes and pulleys. On deck, Alex and the others circled the Infected again and escorted them through a twisty maze of hallways, stairwells, and corridors until they reached an old bar near the front of the boat on the top deck.
Before allowing them inside, however, the two women entered and cleared a bunch of stuff out, setting a full crate outside by their feet. Then, unceremoniously, Alex ushered the Infected inside and turned to leave.
“You’re going to lock us up?” Sam asked, horrified. “In here?” The place looked trashed. An improvised nylon hammock hung in one corner, and a few chairs and tables sat scattered around the area, but there was no bedding. No beds, for that matter. The bar was empty, the cabinets and shelves bare. The room swayed in the rocky ocean, and several of the Infected, Binh included, shot angry looks at Sam.
On the plus side, it wasn’t a labor camp and doors on either side of the bar pointed to restrooms.
“I don’t suppose those are working?” she asked.
Alex squinted at her. “No. All water has been diverted to the hydroponics and the residential sector.”
“Then hide us there.”
“Among the humans?” he asked, his eyes wide.
Sam cast a quick look over the remains of her commune. They were sickly, starved and covered in lichen, and probably stunk to high hell. Binh had slouched onto the floor by the door and instantly passed out with his mouth open. Two women had ripped down the fabric and were shredding it to use as blankets. One other man was behind the bar, furiously looking for whiskey. “Point taken.”
“We’ll bring you food and water in a bit. I promise.”
He looked like he meant it. Maybe he did. Sam scanned the room’s interior and buried her anxiety. “I’m trading one prison for another,” she said.
Alex didn’t seem certain of what that meant. He nodded.
“How long before we get the formula?” Sam asked.
Alex cast a quick look at the scrawny man in the lab coat. “Depends,” he said.
Seeing that she wasn’t going to get much more out of him, Sam pulled up a chair and sat. Feeling a dull ache in her shoulder, she reached absently to scratch. Her lichen growth had receded a bit since she’d last checked and she was surprised to notice that the itch was from her brand. Without thinking twice she lifted up her shirt in front of Alex and inspected her ribs. It was gone there, too.
Odd.
“Okay, well,” Alex said, backing out of the room. “Try and get some sleep.” He limped toward the door—his left hip obviously giving him some trouble—and then moved to close it behind him.
“Alex!” she called after him.
He stopped and gazed back at her with a sad expression. He always looked like a lost puppy when he got hurt.
“I’m trusting you,” she said.
He frowned, then nodded, closing the door behind him.
Sam looked through the window, casting a wary eye on Alex’s teammates as he said a few hushed words to them, then walked away with the man in the lab coat. A woman stood by the door, then glared in through the window.
Their eyes met.
Alex had called her du Trieux. Sam recognized her. In fact, Sam was fairly sure she’d set Alex and the woman up to clean out a commune back in New York after confiscating their weapons. Sam wouldn’t blame the woman if she held a grudge—which, given her expression, she did.
“But it’s not you I’m worried about,” Sam said aloud, although Alex was already gone.
36
“GOOD TO SEE you, Miller,” Lewis said, waving him into Gray’s office. “You’re just in time.”
A line of sullen faces sat around the ping pong table. Beside Lewis, on Gray’s left, sat Jennifer Barrett, her stack of clipboards piled in front of her. Next to Jennifer was the British doctor, Kapoor, and then Dr. Dalton, the scientist from the Penelope, both looking glum.
Miller sat on Gray’s other side, nodding to Captain Corthwell and his annoying commander, who extended his hand toward Miller and then chuckled when Miller merely nodded at him.
“I’m sorry, captain,” Gray said, “you were saying.”
“Right,” the captain said, rolling out a map in front of him. On the opposite side of the table, the two doctors grabbed the edge of the paper and held it flat. The captain leaned forward and pointed down the coast of what had once been the United States of America. “We currently sit here, south of Baltimore, in this alcove on the Chesapeake Bay. The U.S. Navy is no doubt on the lookout for us, so we’ve got to perform our repairs quickly and get back out to sea.
“The Bay Class has a hull breach—it’s been patched, but needs a more permanent repair—and we have to rebuild both our cranes. Whatever that thing was that attacked us is still a mystery. Our preliminary findings show that it wasn’t a giant squid, but some sort of hybrid—something like a cross between a crab and a squid, which would explain why our machine guns did little to deter it... the exoskeleton, you see.
“At any rate, once we know what the good doctors can cook up, we can decide where and when we launch our vaccine distribution campaign. I’ve updated Whitehall and have requested all available reinforcements and repairs. I await their instructions.”
He released the map and sat back into his folding chair. “The Baltimore assault south of the research facility suffered massive casualties, including Major Clark. We lost one Foxhound and ninety-two of our sailors. Given the numbers of the enemy troops—who were apparently lying in wait—we pulled the troops back and evacuated the civilian survivors, then sent the Mk 10 back to the pick-up location, per our contingency plan.” The captain looked to Miller. “Glad to see you made it back, sir.”
“Thank you, captain,” Miller said.
Lewis rested his hands on each thigh then said, “Miller?”
“Two wounded,” he answered carefully. “And as you’re all probably aware, our mission to retrieve the researchers in the Johns Hopkins research facility failed. The US Army had gotten there first and the building was booby-trapped. We managed to rescue one man, a doctor who had handwritten notes on the formulas. Upon our return to the ship, I escorted Dr. Mehta to Dr. Kapoor.” He stopped short, clamping his lips closed.
Lewis wrinkled his brow. “Is that it?”
Miller raised an eyebrow. “Yes, sir.”
Gray nodded, then motioned toward Jennifer Barrett. “Okay. What’s the status report on the Tevatnoa, Jennifer?”
Jennifer flipped a few pages of the topmost clipboard. “We lost three hundred and twenty-six civilians during the outbreak, most of them either over sixty years old or under eighteen. Another nine hundred volunteers were lost during the Baltimore battle.”
Lewis sighed and scowled. “Jesus.”
“I’m having to shuffle a lot of people around,” she continued, looking beaten. “We’ve got an overabundance of single-parent families now, so I’m doubling them up in quarters and spreading out the orphans—twenty-five of them—among them as best I can. Some singles have opted to take a few out of the sheer kindness of their hearts, which helps. I have a couple mo
re I can’t place that I might take myself, if nobody else will.”
Gray raised a hand. “I’ll talk with Barbara. We’ll take them.”
Jennifer looked close to tears. “Thank you, sir.”
Dr. Kapoor rubbed his earlobe. “What about the spread of the influenza?”
“Contained,” Jennifer said. “For now. There are a couple people down in the infirmary who had an allergic reaction to the microbiota injections, for whatever reason. It looks like they’ll pull through. But for the most part it’s stopped the spread and helped with the secondary infections—which is good, since they’ve got their hands full with the wounded now.”
Miller cleared his throat. “How many?”
“Hundreds.” She dug in the pile of clipboards and thumbed through a few pages. “Two hundred and eighty-eight. Most of them are stable, so the numbers may change.”
“You’ve done an incredible job, Jennifer,” Gray said. “Thank you.”
She drew back into her chair and bit her lip, saying nothing.
All eyes shifted to Dr. Kapoor and Dr. Dalton. Gray leaned forward in his chair. “Doctors?”
“It’s too early to tell if we can produce anything,” Kapoor said “Dr. Mehta is working with the RN and the S-Y researchers with his notes. They’re a bit usele—”
“—incomplete,” Dr. Dalton said, finishing Kapoor’s sentence.
Gray’s face fell. “How incomplete?”
Dr. Dalton looked up at the ceiling. “Well...”
Kapoor was having none of it. “Very. To be quite frank, I’m not certain Dr. Mehta’s information isn’t a ruse devised by the American government to trick us into wasting valuable time and resources.”
“He’s a spy?” Jennifer asked, looking mortified.
Dr. Dalton rolled her eyes. “No, he’s not.”
Kapoor glared back at her. “He doesn’t even know the cellular structure of the parasite protozoa!”
“When you yell at people all the time,” Dr. Dalton shouted back at him, “it’s hard to remember anything. The man was hiding in a hole for a week—give him a break, will you? He’ll come through when he’s ready.”
“We don’t have time for that!” Dr. Kapoor bellowed. “The life of every last human is at stake.”
“Enough!” roared Lewis.
“You two,” snapped Gray, “get back to the lab and get to work. We want a report as soon as you have the formulas ready, with or without Dr. Mehta’s help. As for the rest of you, keep us apprised of your progress and don’t be afraid to ask for help. We’re in this together.” When no one immediately moved, he waved his hand in the air. “You’re dismissed.”
Miller waited in his chair as the room cleared. Lewis, having known him well enough to realize something was amiss, stayed behind. When only the three of them remained, Miller rose to his feet.
“All right,” Lewis said. “Let’s have it, son.”
“Sir, I’ve got six Archaean Infected stashed on board in the Crow’s Nest bar.”
Gray’s face turned scarlet. “Are you out of your mind?”
Lewis grabbed his temples and sighed. “By themselves?”
“With Cobalt, sir,” Miller said. “Hsiung, du Trieux, and I have been guarding them on shifts since we’ve been back.”
Lewis raked his scalp with his palms. “Why on earth would you bring them here?”
“These are the same Archaeans who helped us take the compound back in Astoria. Without them, we never would have navigated those booby-traps or survived the assault at the research center. I couldn’t leave them to the US troops back in Baltimore. We owe them.”
Gray raised his eyebrows. “We owe them shit.”
“We owe them a sample of the anti-fungal solution, sir, and safe passage back to land. I promised it to them. That was their commander’s only price.”
Lewis raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure about that?”
“I know she’s Infected, sir,” Miller said. “But she’s proven herself trustworthy twice now. I think giving her one sample won’t kill us.”
“No, but having them here on this ship might,” Gray spat. “How do you know they’re not pinning your team-mates down and spitting in their faces right now? The last thing we need is a parasite breakout aboard this ship. Jesus—if the RN found out, they’d blow us out of the water!”
“I understand, sir. I’m hoping the good doctors can get the formulas squared away ASAP so we can get them on their way.”
Gray squinted at Miller. “And what if they don’t?”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it,” Miller said.
Gray sat back in his seat. “I don’t like this. Just eject them. Turn them loose in a boat and get them off my ship.”
“I made a promise, sir,” Miller said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Lewis snorted. “When has doing the right thing ever gotten us anywhere?”
AS MILLER APPROACHED the Crow’s Nest bar, du Trieux yawned and rubbed her eyes.
“Go get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll take the next shift.”
“Hsiung stashed the ammunition from inside the bar under that bench over there,” she said, nodding across the deck. “I’ll put it in my bunk until we need it.”
“Anything happening inside?”
She shook her head. “Not that I can tell, but damn, they’re ripe. Smells like death, even out here.”
“I told Lewis and Gray about them.”
She frowned. “How’d they take it?”
“About how you’d expect.”
“Can’t say I disagree with them,” she added.
Miller set his jaw. “I hear you.”
“The least we should do is get rid of them before we get too far out to sea. It’d be cruel to set them adrift on a boat in the middle of nowhere. Especially on these waters.”
Miller pursed his lips. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected du Trieux to say, but that hadn’t been it.
“Any word on Morland and Doyle?” she asked.
“I ran into Hsiung in the infirmary before coming here. She was checking up on Doyle. He’s out of surgery, got himself a brand new titanium knee. He’ll be on bed rest for six to eight weeks, but I figure he’s earned it. Morland has some bruising on his chest and a mild concussion, but he’ll live.”
“What about your hip?”
Miller scowled. “What about it?”
Du Trieux nodded, then looked away. “We got lucky.”
“Hardly. Getting lucky would have been finding samples of the solution.”
“You know what I mean, Miller,” she said. “Did you hear what happened to the troops who engaged with the Army?”
“Yes.”
“They walked straight into an ambush. Surrounded on all sides. We lost Clark.”
“I liked her, too.”
Du Trieux wrinkled her nose. “They knew we’d come. We should have known better. We should have been smarter.”
“And done what? No choppers, no air support. Can you think of another way we could have gone in?”
“We never should have gone in, is what I’m saying,” du Trieux said. “Humans are dying out. We should be finding a nice hole to hide in and building our numbers. Not knowingly walking civilians into a slaughter.”
“You going to start with that same breeder shit Harris did?”
She reddened. “Forget it.” Stepping away from the bar door, she walked to the crate of ammunition under the bench and pulled it out.
“Come on,” Miller said. “Don’t give up just yet. What do you want to do? Sail away into the sunset and accept our fate? What about the humans back on land? What about the rest of the world? Victory comes at a cost. You know that.”
She hitched the crate onto her hip. “I’m tired of being the ones to pay it.”
“I’d say Clark paid it this time.”
“If you don’t think we’re next, you’re fooling yourself,” she said.
She was right, but for some reason he couldn�
��t say it out loud.
“This is only the beginning,” she continued. “If we get those formulas working, if we start distributing it—every Infected commune on the globe will be gunning for us. We’re an easy target on this boat, RN gunship or not. This wasn’t a step toward the end of the war.”
She walked down the corridor and shot her last remark over her shoulder. “We started a bigger one.”
GRAY PRESSED HIS fingertips into his temples.
Dr. Dalton, looking as if she hadn’t slept in hours, sat beside him, her palms flat against the ping-pong table.
It’d been a full thirty-six hours since their last meeting. Exhausted, tired, and having only slept a few hours, Miller slumped in his chair and fought to concentrate. Given Dr. Dalton’s expression, he didn’t think the news would be good.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said. Lewis frowned.
“I’m sorry to report, gentlemen,” said Dr. Dalton. “We’ve gone over and over the notes. We’ve interviewed this doctor”—she emphasized the word with thick contempt—“four times. Mehta’s not giving us enough.”
“Not enough for what?” Lewis asked.
“For a cure. I don’t mean to be so downcast, but it’s worthless information.”
Miller sighed. The entire battle in Baltimore. Thousands dead, Clark lost, Doyle wounded. Six Infected on board. For nothing? “What do you mean? Mehta lied about the formulas?”
“Honestly,” the doctor said, “I’m not even sure he was a researcher at Johns Hopkins. I think he was a technician—an intern at best. His notes on the formulas are elementary, and he’s been no help in expanding on them. I thought if we gave him some time he’d step up, but apparently not.”
Lewis cursed under his breath. “I don’t get it. The broadcast said that they had it.”
“And maybe they did—at one time,” the doctor said.
Lewis scratched his thigh. “Suppose Kapoor was right? That they planted him?”
“More likely he wanted safe passage out of the building,” Miller said.
Gray pounded his fist on the table. “What’s missing in the research? There was a formula, wasn’t there? A molecule?”