The medic got the hint. He gave Vonne a half-hearted salute, tried an encouraging smile. "Why don't you do like the Captain says and get something to eat? Mess is right there." He gestured down one muddy path and then scurried away.
Vonne stared after the medic. He felt muddled. He'd seen men he grew up with, men he'd known all his life blown up, chewed up, shot to pieces, and he hadn't felt so muddled as he felt now. He hated the feeling. Hewitt was his best friend, sure, but Hewitt would have wanted him to keep a clear head. After all, he had no sure way of knowing that Hewitt hadn't somehow survived.
Around him life in the camp was going on as if nobody had died. Or maybe as if somebody died everyday so that nobody could give a shit any more. He wanted to get up on a high spot, start yelling that for fuck's sake, twenty five men were dead and didn't any one give a good goddamn?
But hadn't he been the same way when Curtis died? He hadn't had time for grief. All he had time for was living and fighting as long as he could.
Vonne never wanted to be a soldier, but he was a soldier now. He couldn't go scurrying off on his own crazy suicide mission. Hewitt wouldn't want it that way. Told him to get the fuck out, didn't he?
He sucked in a breath, held it until the dim ache in his chest seemed to go away and his stomach rumbled at the smell of food drifting from the way the medic had indicated.
With a last glance back into the forest, Vonne hefted his gun against his shoulder and turned toward the makeshift mess tent.
***
The mess was crowded with more than Unit GJ's usual compliment, the line for lunch stretching clear to the tent entrance. Vonne joined the line and looked around himself with a frown. The man ahead of him caught his expression and said, "Refus like you, man. Reports say four outposts were taken down, everyone running to mobile commands like ours."
Vonne's frown deepened. "Are the apes working overtime? That's a big fucking loss."
The man shrugged, turning back to face the front of the line. "Everyone's got theories."
"You?"
"I heard we finally got something to use against the throwbacks. Bet the apes heard it too and want to wipe us out before we get it in motion."
"Bullshit," another soldier chimed in from behind Vonne. "'S the apes who got a new thing to use against us, faking us out. You GJ boys hiding here don't know nothing. But us on the front line seen it. Wearing our guys' faces like fucking party masks."
"Intel says they always could do that," a third man quietly interjected.
"Intel's full of crap!"
The first man broke out of line to shake a finger at the second. "Look, genius, apes' whole fucking thing was that they turn into whatever they want. 'Adaptation of self instead of anti-natural tech' and all that bullshit whatsherface that Doctor was spouting. Of course they could always do that, they just didn't want us to know!"
"They were waiting." A tired looking woman standing two down from the first man turned and looked at them. "They were waiting so that when we were all fucked up and tired they could show us what they really were and tempt us. That they're not subhuman, they're human and beyond."
"That's fucking traitor talk, bitch!"
"Hey, cool off," Vonne said, laying a hand on the first man's shoulder. But he didn't do much good, just found himself in a sandwich between the first and second man as they continued to argue.
"No, it ain't. I seen guys walk up to the apes with open arms when they seen their friends' old faces."
"That's just 'cause they're tricked."
"No, that's 'cause they seen what's what and they seen what's better and they fucking run into the enemy's arms like some hot fuck. I seen 'em, don't even fight the throwbacks when it's chewin' right on 'em. Traitors, all of 'em."
"That's bullshit! It's fucking bullshit and you better shut up before I feed you those goddamn words!"
No one was more startled than Vonne to realize he'd been the one to shout those words. He colored, ducking his head and mumbling an apology before he fled the line. He heard men coming to his defense, sounding off agreement, but he didn't go back. He snagged a man and begged a bunk and directions to the barracks, and sought out solitude.
The barracks were thankfully quiet, only one man inside, sprawled on his bunk napping. Vonne followed his lead, dropping to an empty mattress, covering his eyes with one arm. When he couldn't sleep he deliberately rolled off the mattress, wedged himself between it and the barracks outer wall. He imagined the steel support against his back was bark and moss, that the nylon wall against his leg was Hewitt's weight leaned up against him. The pretense held for only a little while, but he stayed, comforted by the enclosed feeling. He thought about Curtis and he wondered for the billionth time if there wasn't some sign, why there hadn't been any tip off from intel, why the thing had only chewed Hewitt's arm and then looked at him with Curtis's eyes. Why Hewitt had been so silent when the throwback attacked him.
Was that soldier right to call Hewitt a traitor?
Vonne struck his fist against the bunk mattress. "No fucking way," he growled under his breath.
But then why didn't Hewitt resist? Or had he? Was Hewitt rotting back in that cave?
Not for the first time Vonne wondered what made a man give himself over. Sure, there was the virus, the physiological takeover, but it had been proven that the change had more than that involved. If there were instances of men getting antivirals in time and still changing, why weren't there stories of men being bitten but resisting?
And when the body changed... What made the man into a monster?
Vonne let his head sag against his arms, as if he could bury his head and the truth in one motion. Eventually, he drifted off into a wretched, uncomfortable sleep.
He was jerked back to consciousness by someone clearing their throat.
"Was sleeping on the ground common practice in your unit, Mister Vonne?"
Vonne blinked in confusion until he saw the Unit Captain perched on the edge of his mattress, regarding him with a cool expression. But a smile seemed to play on the corners of his mouth.
"I'll hope, at least, that your unit was rather lax in enforcing rules for where and when an officer might enter unannounced."
"In an emergency, sir," Vonne said, frowning a little.
"It's the same here. At ease, soldier. I realize you've just suffered a great loss."
"No offense, sir, but I been suffering those since the war began. If I can't take 'em and keep going I might as well lie down and die."
"Quite true. All the same, what right do we have to call ourselves human if we cease to grieve for our lost ones?" And the Captain got a faraway look in his eye; like everyone else, Vonne knew, he was surely speaking from experience. But Vonne had no sympathy to spare. So he said nothing.
Eventually the Captain stopped waiting for Vonne and spoke again. "So, Mister Vonne, how'd you like to get a bit of revenge on the bastards who did this to you?"
Vonne looked up at the captain, confused by this sudden change in subject. "Sir?"
"After yesterday's losses, command's decided we need more drastic measures. We've been working on a new technology that needs good, driven men like you to try it out. Men who won't balk at putting themselves in harm's way to deal the Primitives a little of their own medicine."
"You mean men who don't give a shit if they live or die. Sorry, sir, but--"
"No, Vonne, I don't mean that. I mean men who know who they are, what they are, and are pissed off enough that someone's stomping on their God-given humanity to do some real fighting back for once. Men who've seen others raped and turned into those things and who know that they would rather die than become that. Men who want to show the Primitives that you don't fuck with us, because we'll fuck you back twice as hard."
The Captain was fairly young, so it was easy to forgive his expression, which seemed to expect Vonne to lunge to his feet, pump his fist in the air, and volunteer. Instead Vonne leaned against his knees, staring at the far wall, considering. At
last he said, "I don't know that I'm that sort of man, sir, but I would like to take out some throwback for what they did to my buddy."
The Captain clapped him on the shoulder, enthusing. "Good man. Report to south medical unit--ask anyone, they'll point you to it."
Vonne watched him leave, shaking his head.
***
"What's a fuckin' traitor lover like you doing here? Or is it true that you're just all worked up cause yer boyfriend turned furry?"
Vonne frowned as the loudmouth he'd yelled at in the mess elbowed his way in position beside him. "Fuck off." He resisted taking stronger action, but just barely.
The man wrinkled his face up and grabbed his crotch. Vonne caught a dark look from the mission leader, a bespectacled man in a lab coat, so he merely shrugged down into his seat again.
"Deklin, Vonne, will you chatterboxes shut up and listen?"
"Yessir," Deklin snapped off smartly. Vonne just nodded.
The mission leader frowned, but began speaking. "All right! I'm gonna be honest with you all. This ain't a scouting mission or a holding mission or some pansy shit like that. You're all welcome to get up and walk away after this briefing if you like."
Vonne heard murmuring around him. The mission leader gave a hard look around himself before continuing. He held up a vial. It was full of something that looked like bad water.
"This is what you will be carrying. Any of you that accept this mission will be injected with this and sent into known enemy territory. What intel hopes is that this not only keeps you from getting changed, but it's going to make your body become immune after you are bitten. And if you come back alive with that immunity in your system, intel hopes that it can take this shit back out of your blood and share that immunity with anyone who wants it."
He paused, looking around as if daring anyone to go on muttering. He set the vial down and crossed his arms. "We're also hoping it'll have a reverse effect on Primitives. Give them a little payback for all those good men they perverted. This was originally developed as a potential viral weapon against the Primitives before its secondary benefits were discovered. So if you see your attacker get sick, keel over and die, you report it to intel over radio, because if we can use it as a weapon, that is its primary goal."
"Like poisoned meat," the man next to Vonne scowled. "You want us to go out there and be poisoned meat."
"We don't deny that if we can use you to kill the Primitives, we will. After all, isn't that why you joined us?"
"Not to be some goddamn plague rat!"
"Your primary mission is not to be a plague rat, Mr. Simmons, your primary mission is to bring back immunity for everyone here. If should happen that this defense can also be an offense, we want to know about it. But if you don't like the idea, you're welcome to turn down the mission and leave."
"What about guns?" someone yelled. "Throwbacks could just pick us off a mile away. Bitin's just their CQC."
"Current reports seem to indicate the Primitives are changing tactic from elimination to conversion. This is why it's of the utmost importance that we learn if this immunization is successful. You all don't want to spend the rest of your lives scratching your balls in some tree, do you?"
Deklin elbowed Vonne and muttered, "You think he's full of shit?"
Vonne shrugged.
"Whaddya wanna bet they ain't even tested that shit on humans before? Probably make your eyes pop and run out your nose."
Ignoring him, Vonne raised a hand. "I'll do it." He shouldered his gun and stood up.
"The briefing isn't finished--"
"You need some jackasses to get shot up with this shit, go out there, get bit and hopefully not die long enough to come back. That right, sir?"
The mission leader blinked, coloring deeply and adjusting his glasses as if that would give him cover against Vonne's scorn. "Yes, but--"
"You're a crazy motherfucker," Deklin snorted, and he stood too, slinging an arm around Vonne's shoulders. "Sign me up too. Let's go down as men who who saved the world!"
The mission leader squinted at them both. "If you two are joking...."
Deklin started to grin and accede that he was, but Vonne shook his head. "Ain't joking, sir."
Looking caught between his pride and personal sense of preservation, Deklin swallowed and then straightened up. He visibly weighed things for a moment, and then said, "What the hell, I ain't joking either."
The sarge looked pleased and relieved. He turned back to the others. "All right, we got two real men here! Anyone else got balls in this roomful of monkeys?"
***
"Jesus, man, what the hell were you thinking, man?"
They were moving at high noon, when it was too hot and activity in both camps would be low. They'd been given coordinates of known lone patrol teams near camps; the thought was, if they met only one Primitive, chances of surviving were better. Vonne wanted to keep quiet, keep moving until they got there, but Deklin liked the sound of his voice too much to keep quiet for long.
"Wasn't thinking," Vonne said, hoping to shut Deklin up.
"Fucking obvious! Jesus, you think this shit will really work? My arm fucking hurts. Goddamn medics are shit, man."
Vonne just shrugged. He wasn't really concerned with intel's new secret weapon working. What he really wanted was to see a Primitive up close again, look it in the eye. Maybe put a bullet through it--he wasn't sure. Maybe let it take him down instead.
His fingers tightened on his gun.
Deklin hurried to keep pace with him and struck him in the arm to get his attention. "Hey, so you really see a Primitive change? I seen it once too. Some fucked up shit, man. That's how I know only a traitor wouldn't fucking turn tail and run."
Vonne bit down on his anger and only grunted, eyes ahead, pausing as he looked for the next cover.
"One minute I see Joptur, this guy I went to school with? He was in shop class with me. I fucked his cousin once in the tool shed behind school--gawd, she had an ass like a fucking peach. Anyway, I know Joptur went lost to the enemy but I figured maybe he got away. Maybe they don't eat people like some say they do."
Something cold and unpleasant began curling in Vonne's gut, dancing over his skin. He hissed, "Don't really have time for your bullshit, Deklin." Skirting the edge of a dangerous clearing, he kept low, didn't think of Hewitt, of how his palms were sweaty on his gun grip. Didn't like that, so he reached in his pockets, found his fingerless gloves and pulled them on. When he paused, Deklin started speaking again.
"Joptur, he's limping, like he's hurt bad, so I go to help him, yelling his name, relieved and shit... and then his whole body starts breaking. Sick shit, bending and full of knots, like some tree, and hair sprouting, and I was like Jesus H. Christ on a handbasket! Then he was on me so fast I could barely get my gun up--"
"Maybe he was just tryin' to give you a hug," Vonne muttered.
"Death hug, maybe, crush me like a beer can. All I'm saying is that thing jumped on me and I screamed bloody fucking murder 'til I blew its head off. Not like those guys I seen, quiet as a fucking mouse, like some cunt waiting to get her cherry picked."
Vonne shook his head and kept them moving. He scanned the area for signs of a patrol, of Primitive activity. But Deklin's words chewed on him, wouldn't let him go.
"Thing I used to wonder is even if your body changes, why ain't it Joptur still in there? But I got this theory. Primitives got animal brains 'long with their man brains, you know, that's why. People ain't meant to be like that. Makes you crazy."
Vonne shrugged and repositioned his gun so it hung better, gave him more freedom.
Deklin lunged forward, caught his arm, eyes bright. Vonne felt his entire self go on alert, jerking his gun in hand, scanning around them. But Deklin had only had a thought. "You think we'll see your boyfriend out here?"
Without thinking Vonne jerked his fist back and slammed it into Deklin's abdomen, throwing the other man off. "You better shut the fuck up about shit you don't know nothing about!"
Vonne snarled, not noticing his voice had risen substantially.
"Jesus H.," Deklin replied, just as loud, getting to his feet and dusting himself off. "You wanna re-lax? I'm just yanking you."
"No, I don't wanna relax," Vonne said, quieter now. They were standing, he abruptly noticed, in the middle of a broad clearing. The hairs on his arms stood up, and he jerked his head toward a more covered spot, trying to indicate urgency by widening his eyes. Hopefully they were far from anyone who could have heard, seen... Their mission was to be bitten, not killed.
"Everybody 'cept idiots like us is asleep," Deklin sneered as he came to crouch by Vonne's side. "'Specially the furry types."
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