by Peter Clines
Sam heard the nylon of her holster scratch against her uniform. ‘Or I can be shot in the back of the head,’ he finished.
The older man put his hands up in a what can you do gesture. ‘You’re a smart man, Sam. More to the point, you’re a good man. You want to look at that data and you want to do the right thing with it. The logical thing. That’s why I wanted you here working with us. Because I knew you’d see it was the right thing.’
Sam looked at the flash drive. It was black and had the FMF logo on it. He spun it in his hands. Sixty-four gigs of data at his fingertips. Probably a Nobel Prize, too.
He looked at Bradbury. ‘When can I start working?’
The director reached out his hand and the two men shook. ‘I believe the lab’s been cleaned up for you. Let me go check.’ He stood up and nodded at the phone. ‘The inter-office system’s been out all morning.’
‘Not a problem.’ Sam flipped the flash drive over in his hand one more time and dropped it into his coat pocket.
Hogan stepped to the side to let Bradbury exit. ‘Keep an eye on him,’ said the older man with a wink. ‘Make sure he doesn’t try to steal my idol.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said with a straight face.
With Bradbury gone, Sam decided to risk getting out of the chair. He leaned forward and slowly shifted his weight to his feet. He straightened up and stretched his arms out over his head. He’d barely been sitting for half an hour, but his limbs felt stiff and sluggish. He shook his hands out and snapped his fingers a few times.
He looked at Hogan. She was kind of pretty in a sturdy, mannish way. He cleared his throat. ‘Would you really have shot me if I said I wasn’t interested?’
Her eyes stayed fixed on the far wall. ‘I would’ve done my duty, sir.’
‘That’s not really an answer.’
‘Yes, sir, it is.’
He pursed his lips and stretched again. ‘We have a saying in the lab. You get one bounce a semester.’
She glanced at him. ‘Sorry?’
‘In the lab.’ He rolled his shoulders a few times to loosen them up. ‘Every now and then you’ll drop a beaker or a flask, or a test tube will slip and roll off the table. It’s just part of the job. But every now and then, maybe once every four or five months or so, that beaker will hit the floor and it won’t break. It’ll bounce.’ He mimed a vertical rebound with his hand. ‘The Pyrex glass makes this really neat sound, too.’
She nodded absently and went back to staring at the wall.
‘The whole point,’ he continued, ‘is that every now and then the universe cuts you some slack and things don’t go the way everyone expects they will.’
He lunged at her.
Sam outweighed Hogan by about twenty pounds, on a guess, but she was solid muscle and he was a doctor who hadn’t seen a gym in four months now. One of his hands went for the holstered pistol. The other grabbed her belt in the back and tried to turn her away from him, into the door. There was a strap across the pistol and he fumbled with it.
She slammed her elbow back. It didn’t hit him right in the gut, but it was close enough. He coughed up most of his air just as his fingers pulled open the velcro strap with a loud ripping noise. Her fist came around in a backhand that snapped against his temple. His vision blurred and he dropped to one knee.
‘That was very stupid,’ she said. She grabbed his shoulder and kept him on his knees. ‘I’m going to have to tell the director about this. You may be deemed a security risk after all.’
‘Bounce day,’ he said.
Her brows came together and he jabbed her thigh with the stun gun. It made a loud crack, a very bright spark, and then all its impressive voltage was channeled into Sergeant Hogan’s muscles and nerves. She fell back and he leaned forward to make sure the prongs stayed in contact with her. Her legs gave out as she hit the door and she slumped down, twitching the whole way.
Sam pulled the stun gun away from her. Then he sucked a few breaths into his bruised lungs. He staggered to his feet, hooked his arms under hers, and dragged her away from the door.
He was just setting her down again when Bradbury walked back in. The director took in the scene in a moment. He turned to run and Sam hit him in the back with the stun gun.
He took another deep breath. For a plan he’d made up five minutes ago, it was going surprisingly well. He hooked the stun gun’s thin lanyard around his wrist and
checked to make sure the flash drive was still in his pocket. He’d have to trust that it really was what Bradbury said it was.
Five minutes later he’d dragged Hogan to the elevator link and locked Bradbury inside his office. There’d been a brief desire to brain the man once or thrice with his precious replica idol. More than brief, really. Part of him still wished he’d done it. He thanked God again that the director’s floor had almost no one on it. Even Bradbury’s aide had vanished, perhaps off to a late lunch. He could hear the echo of voices, but no one appeared to question what he was doing with the sergeant.
He propped Hogan up against the back wall of the elevator and tapped one of the buttons. A quick check of her eyes confirmed she was glaring at him. He shut her radio off, released her pistol, and found the pouch of extra magazines on her other hip. He dropped the magazines in the coat pocket with the jump drive. The pistol didn’t fit in a pocket, so he tucked it into the back of his pants and pulled his coat over it.
The elevator doors slid open on the sixth floor.
He walked back to the giant aquarium. Three junkies charged him this time. The same two as before and another man. He ignored them and went to the large, airlock-like door.
It was the exact same setup as the CDC had back in Sacramento. A time delay door with a pass code lock. The lock had a basic keypad layout, just like an ATM. He looked at it for a moment and decided to see if he could get two bounces in one day.
He tapped in a five digit code and hit enter. There was a heartbeat of silence and then the keypad turned green. Above the door, a red light flashed next to a thirty-second countdown timer. There was no alarm.
Like the CDC, no one at the FMF had bothered to change their lock code from the default setting it came with. What would be the point?
The former research team threw themselves at the Plexiglas again. They watched him with hungry eyes. More of the junkies moved towards the flashing red light.
He ran back to the elevator. The car gave a slight bounce as he stepped in that almost covered the distant hiss of an airtight door opening. Hogan glared at him and muttered a few angry syllables.
‘You might not believe me right now,’ he said, ‘but someday you’re going to thank me for saving your life.’
He hit her with the stun gun again and she twitched for a few seconds. Then he hit the button for the lobby. As the doors closed he tossed the block of plastic out into the sixth floor hallway. He could hear bare feet in the elevator link as the car dropped down the shaft.
The doors pinged open on the ground floor. Three guards in black body armor stood there. The two facing him saw Hogan on the floor and their eyes got hard.
Sam met their gaze. ‘Where’s your medkit?’ he shouted.
They were already stepping forward but the shout made them pause. It also made them raise their rifles a few inches. ‘What happened to Sergeant Ho—’
‘She had a seizure,’ Sam snapped. He jabbed the FMF badge on his coat twice as he did, the one that said DR. CLEMENS in big letters. ‘Where’s your damned medkit?’
The man pointed down the hall to the reception area. The others kneeled by Hogan and tried to speak to her. She moved her mouth but no sound came out.
‘Elevate her feet and hold her down,’ yelled Sam as he stepped into the hall. ‘And stick something in her mouth. She could bite her tongue off if she seizes again.’ He headed in the direction of the medkit.
Two more guards passed him and he waved them towards the elevator. He hoped no one noticed the extra weight in one side of his coat. The woman at recep
tion looked at him. ‘What’s all the shouting back there?’
‘They got out,’ he said. He tried to add a believable dose of panic into his voice. ‘The junkies in the tank up on six, they got out.’
Her eyes went wide. ‘Is everyone okay?’
‘I think so. Director Bradbury locked himself in his office. Sergeant Hogan got me out but she had some kind of seizure or something.’
The woman typed while he talked and red lights began to flash. ‘Get to your quarters,’ she said to him, tilting her head towards the door. ‘I need to lock the building down.’
Something went tight in his throat and relaxed just as fast. The shiver probably helped make him look scared. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
He stepped out of the building. A squad of men in black armor charged up the steps and he leaped out of their way. He was at the bottom of the stairs when he heard the door lock shut.
Three bounces. He didn’t deserve to be this lucky.
He walked across the plaza. There was a Humvee waiting by the gate. It might have been the same one he drove in down from Sacramento. He wondered if their gate procedures were lax, too.
The big vehicle was empty. It was the same Humvee, because he could smell the driver’s body odor. Sam hefted himself into the seat. The pistol in the back of his pants shifted and fell out. He tried to pull it out casually and drop it between the seats.
The Humvee had more power than anything he’d ever driven, and he could feel it raring to lunge forward. He pulled up to the gate and tried to give a casual salute to the guards there. Most of them were looking back towards the flashing red lights at the Federal Building. They only half-glanced at him and returned the salute just as casually.
The gate opened.
Four bounces in a row. He had definitely used up all his luck for the year.
He steered the Humvee across Wilshire and made the turn north onto Sepulveda. He remembered that much from a Spring Break at Venice Beach. Sepulveda can get you anywhere. He’d even mentioned it to the driver on the trip down.
With him behind the wheel, the Humvee was a clumsy beast, but it was the only vehicle on the road. Sam floored it and the huge engine growled. It climbed the hills, passed museums, and cruised down into the San Fernando Valley.
He saw some junkies as he drove. Some cringed from the roaring behemoth of the Humvee. Others roared back and tried to chase it. He left them in his dust and they vanished around curves and corners.
Twenty minutes after escaping the Los Angeles Federal Building, he noticed the red light on the dashboard. It was right under the gas gauge. The needle was pointed at E. Five minutes after that the big vehicle rolled to a stop.
So much for bounces.
Sam peered out through the windows. He was right by a broad on-ramp for Interstate 405. Sepulveda curved away between tall buildings ahead of him.
The freeway would be more direct, but would also offer less shelter. The main road offered more opportunities, and a better chance to hide from the FMF if they came after him. It also meant a better chance of running into junkies.
While he debated his next step he searched the Humvee. There was a black duffle bag under the back seat with an emergency kit in it. Some food, water, a first aid kit, and some other survival supplies. There were some flares in the far back, too, and a large flashlight. He stuck them all in the bag and added one of the spare pistol magazines as well.
He opened the door and slid down to the pavement. The city was dead quiet. He hadn’t realized it on the drive in. No cars. No birds. Just the faint sound of distant breezes.
Sam slung the bag over his shoulder and tucked the pistol into his belt. After a moment he pulled it out and walked with it in his hand. Then he stuck it back in his belt.
It was almost four hundred miles to Sacramento, if memory served. Not impossible to walk. A lot harder watching out for junkies. If luck held, he’d find another car. Or someone to watch his back.
He walked two blocks north on Sepulveda to where it intersected with Van Nuys. A woman stood in the east side of Van Nuys.
She wasn’t much older than he was. Maybe not at all older, just with a lot more mileage. A lot of people had that look to them these days. She wore a pistol on her hip and there was an aluminum baseball bat in her hand. It had a practice donut on it, giving it a bit more weight for the swing.
‘Hi, there,’ he said. He didn’t call out. His voice carried across the silent intersection.
She looked at him for a moment. He couldn’t make out too much of her features, but she had dark hair and he wondered if maybe she didn’t speak English. He couldn’t remember too much Spanish.
He cleared his throat and raised his volume slightly. ‘Are you okay? I’m a doctor. I can help you if you’re hurt or—’
‘I’m okay,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Good. My name’s Sam.’
‘Holly.’
‘It’s really nice to meet you, Holly. Which way are you headed?’
She pointed up Sepulveda with the bat. ‘North.’
‘Anywhere in particular?’
‘Maybe.’
He opened his arms. A gesture of peace. ‘I’m headed that way too. Sacramento. Maybe we could travel together?’
Holly closed her eyes and gripped the tape-wrapped handle of the bat. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Things ended messy with the last person I traveled with.’
Sam relaxed his arms and felt the shape of the jump drive in his pocket. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’ll turn out better this time.’
Five bounces. He hoped his smile didn’t make him look crazy.
STRICTLY PROFESSIONAL
It had been six months since the world ended.
For Quilt, things didn’t seem all that different.
Oh, a few dozen cities had fallen and more than a billion people had died, if numbers were to be believed. Millions were starving because of the shutdown of so many public services. Millions more were running around killing and eating anything they got their hands on.
In the end, though, nothing had really changed, as he saw it. People were still selfish animals, infected or not. Despite what science said about chimpanzees, Quilt believed mankind was a more evolved form of cockroach. This epidemic was a minor setback. Within fifty years there’d be no sign it had happened.
He loped along the roof of the building, slid down to the shop next door, and paused to wipe some dust from his glasses. They had a non-reflective coating which could be damaged easily if he let too much grit build up on the lenses. While he wiped them on his undershirt, he glanced over the edge of the roof at the baker’s dozen of infected people wandering and moaning through the streets.
It had begun in Asia. An epidemic that spread like wildfire. Not surprising, he thought, given the population density. It had been called the China Syndrome for the first few weeks, but the technical name was H1B6. Most people called it the Baugh Contagion now, after the scientist who first isolated it.
The contagion affected the brain. It caused poor judgment, uncontrollable hunger, a breakdown of communication skills, and eventually death. People spread the disease in its early stages through lack of inhibitions and bad personal choices. In the final weeks, they spread it in a much more active fashion. While most diseases made their victims weaker as they progressed, H1B6 made them burn up their lives in a frenzy. Two or three weeks of running, shaking, and howling. And biting. The biting had helped make it an epidemic. The tremors, babbling, and erratic behavior had helped give the infected the nickname junkies.
As Quilt looked at the gibbering infected below him, it occurred to him that he’d gone seven weeks without saying a single word. He’d gone for long periods before without speaking, depending on the location or requirements of a given job, but this was impressive even for him. There’d been no one to speak with, granted, and for a brief moment he toyed with the idea of saying a few words just to hear a voice, even if it was his own. He dismissed the thought just as swiftly. Talking
to yourself was a bad habit, and bad habits were the bane of his profession.
In another life, Quilt might’ve had any number of jobs. He had very good organizational skills. He was great with faces. His hand-eye coordination was phenomenal. He had a flawless internal clock. It crossed his mind now and then that he would’ve made an excellent executive assistant, or perhaps a high-level manager of some kind.
Of course, he had one other skill. No matter where or when he’d lived, it would’ve ended up being his defining trait. It stood out on a resume.
Quilt killed people.
He did it very well, and had been doing it for most of his adult life. He’d never be so arrogant as to say he was the best at what he did or any other such statements. Privately, though, he knew there were very few people in his line of work who were considered better.
A quick check assured him this new rooftop, three stories up, was completely secure. He’d been on the move for six hours. Time to stop for his meal. He set his rifle down carefully and slid the streamlined pack off his shoulders. There were two Marine-issue MREs left in it.
He lifted the particle mask that covered his nose and mouth. It was number sixty-eight out of one hundred. They were all charcoal-gray, a specialty color he paid double for from an exploitative website that took advantage of rich germaphobes. Their products were top quality, though, and they had never questioned the false identities Quilt used to buy them.
Quilt hated diseases. One might even say he feared them. He disliked anything he couldn’t fight on equal terms. He knew his phenomenal health and careful, precise method of doing things made the risk of infection extremely minimal, but the thought nagged at the back of his mind.
He cracked open the MRE and began to eat. He made a point of setting his spoon down between each bite, giving the food longer to suppress his appetite. Quilt only ate one meal a day. It made it easer to carry enough food for two or three weeks.