Pandemic i-3

by Scott Sigler

  Cooper and Jeff had picked up on Steve’s troubled thoughts and applied what seemed to be their cure-all for any affliction — drinking. The three of them sat in a booth at Monk’s Pub. This was their third stop of the night; Steve was already drunk. They’d had Old Style beer at a dive bar called Marie’s Riptide Lounge, then moved on to far more fancy trappings and expensive scotch at Coq D’Or and finally landed at Monk’s. Steve had lost track of the drinks he’d consumed. Three beers… or was it four? And those two shots… had they contained more than the standard one and a half ounces of liquor? Based on the way his head was swimming, it seemed like they had.

  Monk’s was packed. Music blared. People laughed, shouted to be heard over the high level of noise. Steve wondered if it was loud enough to damage his hearing. One night wouldn’t do that much damage, he figured. Besides, tonight he wasn’t some nerd hanging out with his parents and family at the restaurant, he was partying. And the girls… so many girls, black and white and Asian and Hispanic, wearing jeans and tight sweaters or more revealing outfits they’d hidden under heavy winter coats. Steve glanced over to the bar, to a blond girl with glasses he’d been staring at earlier.

  She was staring back at him. She smiled.

  Jeff smacked Steve in the arm.

  “Too bad about those limo ladies, my friend,” Jeff said. He wore jeans, a black belt and a black AC/DC concert T-shirt that showed off his lean biceps and muscle-packed forearms. “I can’t believe you hired actual models instead of escorts. I mean, they were escorts, sure, but not escort-escorts.”

  A tap on his other arm: Cooper. He also wore jeans, but with a gray sweater that made him look like a college professor.

  “Jeff is a sad panda because you didn’t hire hookers,” Cooper said.

  “I’m not sad,” Jeff said. “Just saying a little limo-shag is never a bad thing. Hey, Steve-O, you going to pick out something to eat, or what? We need to get some food in you or you’re going to pass out on us, and there’s way more drinking to be done!”

  Steve picked up the menu sitting on the table in front of him. He tried to concentrate on it, but it blurred in and out of focus.

  “Maybe a burger,” he said. “Cooper, are you having a burger?”

  Jeff laughed. “A burger? For that hippie? Maybe there’s some grass in here for him to graze on.”

  Steve looked at Cooper. Cooper shrugged.

  “I’m a vegetarian,” he said. “Jeff can’t quite comprehend why anyone wouldn’t want to consume the flesh of animals raised as captives and then butchered, screaming in agony.”

  Jeff crossed his arms, affected a look of utter disgust. “Dead animals are God’s gift to man. Beef is delicious. Bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good.”

  The waitress appeared, carrying three beers.

  “You boys ready to order?”

  Cooper closed his menu. “Roasted vegetable salad, please.”

  “Cheeseburger,” Jeff said. “Make it moo.”

  Steve stared at his menu, but the words again fuzzed to the point where he couldn’t read them.

  The menu suddenly flew from his hands. Jeff had yanked it away and closed it.

  “Stanton, enough rinky-dinking around,” he said. Jeff turned to the waitress. “My man here is having a cheeseburger, medium. And may I say, your eyes absolutely sparkle in this light.”

  The waitress winked. “Smooth talker. Won’t get you out of giving me an obnoxious tip.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jeff said. “My tip is always oversized.”

  The waitress shook her head, but she had to hold back a laugh. If Steve had said a line like that, he would have been slapped. Not that he could ever actually say something like that in the first place.

  The waitress walked off.

  Jeff pointed to Steve’s glass. “Get at that beer, bitch! It ain’t gonna drink itself!”

  Cooper rolled his eyes. “By bitch, he means Mister Stanton.”

  “Here,” Jeff said, picking up his glass, “let me show you how a real man does it.” He tipped the glass back and drank the whole thing in one pull. He set it down hard enough on the table to make the other drinks slosh a little. He belched.

  “Boom!” Jeff pointed at Cooper’s mug. “Coop, get to gettin’! You, too, Steve-O! Knock it back!”

  Steve glanced to the bar, to the girl, saw that she was still watching, still smiling. He didn’t want the girl to think he was a wimp, so he lifted the glass.

  “I have to drink the whole thing?”

  Cooper shook his head. “No, you don’t.” He shot Jeff a stern look. “This isn’t a frat party, right, Jeff?”

  “Phi-drinky-drinky,” Jeff said. “What’s the matter, Steve? Are you a puh-puh-puh-pussy?”

  Steve looked at the full glass of beer in his hand. If Jeff had done it, then so could he. He tipped the glass back. He swallowed once, twice, then his throat got so cold but he kept swallowing. Jeff screamed “go-go-go” as Steve drained the glass and set it on the table.

  Jeff raised his arms high. “Winnah!”

  Cooper rolled his eyes again, but clapped lightly. “You two can hang out all night. Clearly you’ve got the same testosterone problem.”

  Jeff stood. “Boys, don’t go anywhere.” He walked to the bar, leaving Steve and Cooper alone.

  “So, Steve,” Cooper said, “you having a good time?”

  Steve nodded. His head felt all heavy and loose. “Yes. But I think I may have drunk too much.”

  “I can see that. I’ll make sure you get back to the hotel safe. Now, you want to tell me what was going on back on the Mary Ellen?”

  Steve felt the elation drain from his body. Why did Cooper have to bring that up now?

  Cooper leaned across the table. “If Bo Pan is messing with you, maybe Jeff and I can help.”

  He looked so honest, so open. Steve thought about telling him the whole story, right there and then.

  And then Jeff returned, the girl with glasses at his side. Jeff slid in next to Cooper, the girl with glasses sat down next to Steve.

  “Boys, meet Becky,” Jeff said. “Becky just so happens to be one of my favorite names.”

  Cooper seemed to forget all about the discussion; he looked hungrily at Becky. “A lovely name to accompany a lovely face,” he said.

  Becky laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. Her blond hair bounced and swayed.

  Jeff and Cooper seemed so at ease with girls, so natural, like they’d done this a thousand times.

  Jeff reached across the table and grabbed Steve’s shoulder.

  “Steve, Becky and I have a bet,” he said. “She bet me that you can’t drink a shot of Jäger.”

  Cooper groaned. “Jesus, Jeff, what are you trying to do, kill our boss?”

  Jeff slapped the table. “She didn’t think our boss could drink his shot! I said, Becky, you are a dirty whore with the diseased snatch of a smelly pirate hooker!”

  Steve’s jaw dropped, but Becky laughed even harder. She looked at Steve, smiled a sexy smile.

  They were calling him boss… for Becky’s benefit? To make him seem more important in her eyes?

  The beautiful girl put her elbows on the table, leaned closer. Her shoulder touched Steve’s.

  “You guys are way older than he is,” she said. “Are you sure he’s your rich boss, or are you running a line on me?”

  Cooper put his hand on his chest. “Madam, you offend me. I assure you, Mister Stanton has more money than we could count in a week. Maybe even two weeks. It’s just that much. Not only is he smart, well-off, insanely good-looking, staying at the Trump Tower because he’s fancy and fine, but he’s also an adventurer — we’re back from several days at sea.”

  Steve held up a finger. “It was a lake.”

  “Several days at lake,” Cooper said. “Right you are, boss.”

  The waitress returned, plunked down four shot glasses filled with black liquid. Those were definitely more than one and a half ounces.

  Becky smiled at S
teve. “The bet is that if you can drink one of these, I have to kiss you.”

  Steve stared. He swallowed. “And if I can’t?”

  Becky leaned even closer. “Then you have to kiss me.”

  Yes, this was really happening. Drunk or not, this was really happening.

  Steve grabbed the glass, tilted his head back and poured it all in. His mouth rebelled almost instantly — how awful! It tasted like moldy licorice. It burned going down. He felt his stomach roil, but he wasn’t going to throw up in front of the prettiest girl he’d ever spoken to.

  He turned the glass over and set it on the table, the awful taste still clinging to the inside of his mouth and his nose as well.

  Becky put her hand on his chest, pushed him lightly until his back pressed against the booth seat. She turned to her right, then raised slightly and slid backward into Steve’s lap.

  “You win,” she said. She kissed him, slow and warm. Steve’s body seemed to melt. Becky’s hand held the back of his head as her tongue slid into his mouth. He felt himself grow hard instantly, knew that she felt it, too, and she didn’t move away. He heard Jeff screaming something supportive yet obscene, but Steve’s world narrowed to the kiss, to the girl.

  This was the greatest night ever.

  As Steve, Cooper and Jeff partied, they couldn’t know what was happening to their bodies. Jeff, in particular, couldn’t know of the microscopic, amoebalike organisms on his palms, his fingertips. He couldn’t know that on everything he touched — and everyone he touched — he left these moving vectors of disease.

  A waitress picked up a glass: contact.

  The bartender put his hand on the bar where Jeff had done the same only moments earlier: contact.

  A drunk man bumped into Jeff, then they shook hands to make sure no one was upset: contact.

  Jeff made out with a woman who had put in a long day at the office and just needed to blow off some steam: contact.

  That night, two dozen people would leave the bar with crawlers already burrowing under their skin, already seeking out stem cells…

  …already changing them into something else.

  BOOK II

  Chicago

  DAY SIX

  MEN WITH GUNS

  “Hey, Margo,” Perry said. “Aren’t you going to say hello? That’s what you’re supposed to say at this point — hello.”

  Her mouth moved.

  “Hello, Perry.”

  Perry Dawsey smiled.

  The bomb screamed its war cry of descent. Margaret tried to take a step forward, but couldn’t move her foot. She looked down. What little blacktop remained atop the decades-old brick street had melted, all shiny and black, a stinking, gravel-strewn mess that trapped her like an ancient animal in a tar pit.

  Hot wind whipped madly, making roofs sag and smolder. Her blue hazmat suit slowly dripped off her, running down her body to puddle along with the liquid tar.

  Perry drew in a deep breath through his nose, seeming to soak up the hot wind and the fetid air. He looked around.

  “This is where I caught Chelsea,” he said. “The voices stopped, but you know what? It didn’t matter. Those things were already inside of me. Nothing I did made any difference. I shouldn’t have fought them, Margo — I should have welcomed them.”

  Her suit melted away, leaving her naked. Stabbing pains rippled across her skin, the hard sensation of long needles sliding into her muscles, her organs.

  Perry frowned. “Margo, what’s wrong?”

  “It hurts,” she said. “Bad.”

  He nodded knowingly. “I think they’re moving to your brain. I know you don’t want to lose control, but it will be okay.”

  The pains grew worse, driving to her bones, through her bones and into the marrow inside.

  “I… I’m not infected,” she said. “The tests… I took the tests…”

  Perry reached out his right hand, cupped her naked breast. His skin felt icy cold, a knife-sharp contrast to the blast furnace that roiled around them.

  “The Orbital traveled across the stars,” he said. “It could rewrite our DNA. It could turn our bodies into factories that made the things it needed. Did you think it wasn’t smart enough to make changes, Margo?”

  Her skin bubbled like the street’s boiling tar. She fell to her knees.

  Perry stood over her, gently stroking her head. Her scalp came away in bloody, wet-hair-covered clumps that clung to his huge hand.

  He squatted in front of her, put a finger under her chin, lifted it until she looked into his blue eyes. Then, he gave his finger the smallest flick — her jaw tore off, spiraled away.

  Perry smiled. “Did you really think it wasn’t capable of beating your silly little test?”

  A shudder brought her awake. She sat up, pulled the blankets and sheets tight around her. She was alone in the tiny bunk room.

  She was on the Coronado. She was here with Tim, with Clarence, with Paulius and his SEALs.

  She was safe.

  Or was she?

  Outside that door stood a man with a gun — a man who would murder her if her next test blinked red.

  And Clarence… she couldn’t trust him. He’d worked with Cheng to keep her out of the project until it was too late, until Cheng got all the credit. Tim Feely had also helped Cheng, gone behind Margaret’s back, sabotaged her work. She had put her life on the line and the three of them — three men — had conspired to push the only woman out, to make sure she got no credit. No, not three, four, because Murray had to be part of it.

  Now that breweries were kicking out millions of bottles of Feely’s yeast — and how convenient the strain was named after him and not her — did Murray even need her anymore? Maybe that man outside with the gun wouldn’t stay outside for long. Maybe he was already planning on how to put a bullet in Margaret’s brain, maybe he was…

  Her thoughts trailed off. Her paranoid thoughts. Perry had been paranoid. All the infection victims had been.

  Paranoia.

  A sore throat.

  A headache… body pains.

  She had all the symptoms.

  The incubation period was around forty-eight hours. Her suit had been ripped during the battle, but that was just twenty hours ago — even if she had contracted the infection, she wouldn’t be showing symptoms yet. She couldn’t be infected… could she?

  No, she couldn’t, because she’d ingested Tim’s inoculant and introduced his modified yeast into her system. That should have killed the crawlers long before they could reach her brain.

  A knock at the door.

  “Margaret?”

  Klimas. Coming with another test.

  She couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak.

  The door opened. Klimas stepped inside, a smiling assassin with a black eye.

  No preliminaries; he just offered the box. And why not? The drill was old hat. Klimas knew she wasn’t infected. She’d tested negative so many times already.

  But how could that be?

  Her hand reached out on its own, took the box. She didn’t want to die, not like this, not with a bullet to the head…

  She ripped open the foil, used the cool, wet cotton to clean her finger. She pressed the tester against her fingertip, felt the tiny sting of the needle punching home.

  Yellow… blinking yellow… slowing… slowing… slowing…

  Green.

  Klimas nodded. “Good to go. Thanks.”

  He took the blinking test and the empty box from her, then walked out. He shut the door behind him.

  Margaret’s body shuddered with both relief and terror — she was alive, but she was infected. Had to be. But why hadn’t it turned red…

  Did you think it wasn’t smart enough to make changes, Margo? Did you really think it wasn’t capable of beating your silly little test?

  She shook her head.

  “No,” she whispered. “Oh God, no.”

  Cantrell… he’d tested negative over and over again, but when he’d escaped his cell he’
d come after her, tried to kill her. Cantrell… the one with the genius IQ, just like her. He’d been infected the whole time, right under their nose.

  The Orbital had created a new organism — an organism that the test didn’t detect.

  And she had it.

  She had to tell someone, warn everyone. She had to tell Klimas… but if she did, he’d kill her on the spot. If she didn’t, she’d convert, become one of them. But maybe she wouldn’t… this new organism, it was untested, un-proven. Maybe she wouldn’t convert.

  And, maybe she was just being crazy… the test turned green, not red, GREEN.

  She was okay. She wasn’t infected.

  She wasn’t.

  A PRAYER FOR THE DYING

  Murray sat on a couch in the Oval Office. In front of him was a table loaded with neat folders. Beyond that, a chair that held President Blackmon. They were alone.

  They had spent the last hour in the Situation Room — along with Admiral Porter, the secretary of defense and a few other big hitters — debriefing about the second naval disaster to occur on Lake Michigan in the last six days. At the end of that meeting, Blackmon had asked Murray to join her.

  For the first thirty minutes of that second meeting, her personal staff had been present, helping plan and explain the logistics of the immunization effort. It was the largest public health effort in the nation’s history, so there were a lot of logistics.

  Then, Blackmon had asked everyone to leave. Everyone except Murray.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d been alone with a president. Going on four decades, now, Murray had been summoned to this office to discuss things that could have no record of being discussed.

  Blackmon had her left leg crossed over her right, the hem of her stiff dress suit perfectly positioned over her left knee. In her lap, she had an open folder. Blackmon preferred paper over electronics whenever it was convenient — one of the few things about her that Murray found admirable.

  She shut the folder and looked up at him. “The first delivery of inoculant will be here tomorrow afternoon. Deliveries to military facilities will start arriving tomorrow night, and it will take a week before we reach them all. The first civilian deliveries are scheduled to arrive in major cities two days from now. I’m burning every last scrap of political capital I have on this, Director Longworth, so I have to put you on the spot — I want to know what Cheng saw when he tested it on his crawlers.”