Battle

by Tom Abrahams

  Sharp shook her head. “Not yet.” She motioned toward a wall of elevators at the far end of the atrium, walked with purpose to them, and flashed a badge at a magnetic panel above the floor indicators. The panel’s light switched from red to green and Sharp pressed the DOWN button.

  “Where are we going?” asked Taskar.

  “You’ll see when we get there. Have patience, Timothy.”

  The elevator buzzed and the twin stainless steel doors slid apart. They stepped into the car and the door slid shut behind them. Sharp again pressed her badge to a panel and, when prompted, touched her index finger to a fingerprint-recognition pad. When the corresponding lights blinked green, she pushed the button at the bottom of the numeric bank.

  The elevator shuddered and whooshed downward. Taskar felt the momentary loss of gravity in his feet and his stomach lurched. Blankenship stood in the corner of the elevator car. Condensation from his breath bloomed on the plastic face guard of his hood. Taskar noticed an illuminated square box at his chest, a red numeric display at its center.

  “That’s an oxygenator,” said Sharp. “Our mobile biohazard suits have self-contained oxygen supplies. Its new technology developed here in this building.”

  Taskar nodded. He could feel Blankenship staring at him.

  “It’s a lot to take in, Timothy,” said Sharp. “Most of it, however, has nothing to do with you and what we’re asking of you. Stay focused.”

  “How do you know my first name?” he asked. “Nobody knows it. Well, nobody who’s still alive.”

  “Why wouldn’t I know your name?” Sharp asked. “I know everything else about you.”

  The elevator slowed and an artificial voice announced their arrival at their destination floor. It was something called the “observatory lab.”

  The doors whooshed apart and Sharp led Taskar out of the car and into a hallway that forked into three directions.

  “We’ve done our due diligence on all of our transporters,” she said, “just as we did on each of our subjects. It’s important that we understand the psychology of those with whom we are entrusting our future. We cannot afford to take chances where they’re unnecessary to take.”

  Taskar hustled to keep up with Sharp’s brisk pace along the narrow, brightly lit hallway. He tried matching the rhythm of her heels clicking on the hard cement flooring. He hadn’t seen a woman wear high heels in years. He’d almost forgotten they existed.

  “Who are you exactly?” he asked. “I know you’re the CDC. But seriously, who are you?”

  Dr. Sharp slowed and allowed Taskar to slide next to her as she walked. She tilted her head. “Interesting question. And it’s without an easy answer.”

  “Try me,” said Taskar.

  She stopped walking. “Yes, we are the CDC,” she said, “and we spent much of the first post-Scourge years trying to isolate the virus in a way that we could inoculate for it, prevent it from ever coming back, identifying why the survivors were immune to its ridiculously high morbidity.”

  “Spent?”

  She raised her chin and pulled her shoulders back. “Perceptive, Timothy. We stopped working backwards several years ago. Our mission changed. Now we are much more…forward looking. Many of us are not CDC-centric anymore. There is a heavy military presence here, as you may have noticed.”

  “Impossible to miss.”

  “Yes,” said Sharp. “Regrettable, but necessary, given the work we’re performing here. It’s highly sensitive and is at the direction of those in the highest levels of government.”

  “What exactly is the work you’re performing here?” asked Taskar. “Especially if it’s not making sure the Scourge doesn’t happen again.”

  Sharp raised her eyebrows but said nothing. She motioned toward the end of the hall with her head and began walking. Taskar again kept pace with the click of her heels until they’d passed an intersecting hallway and reached a coded door. Sharp opened it through a multistep process that included the key card, a manually entered code, and a biometric scanner.

  The door clicked open and she pulled it toward her, stepping out of the way for Taskar to cross the threshold first. “Go ahead,” she encouraged. Taskar entered the room to the sound of a vibrating hum. He could feel it in his chest as he walked into the space filled with computers and a wall of monitors along one side. At the back of the room Dr. Morel sat in a rolling chair, pecking at his keyboard with his index fingers and thumbs, and apparently hadn’t heard the door open.

  Dr. Sharp took Taskar by the arm and led him from the entry to the opposite end of the room. She moved quickly and seemed irritated, more so than usual. She let go of his arm when they’d reached Dr. Morel. He spun in his chair and rolled backward when Sharp called his name.

  He smiled and stood. “Ah,” he said warmly, “you’re here, Timothy. Good to see you. We wondered if you were going to make it. You ran a bit late.”

  Taskar swallowed and started to explain. “I wasn’t late, I—”

  “It’s a moot point,” Sharp cut in. “He’s here and ready to go. Shall we show him the cargo and explain the protocol?”

  The smile shrank from Morel’s face and he nodded. He glanced past Taskar to the bank of monitors on the far wall and pointed at them. “This is it over here,” he said, sliding past his visitors to move closer to the wall. Blankenship kept his distance, legs shoulder width apart, his rifle across his chest. “Each of these displays presents an opportunity,” he said less as if lecturing to a class of college students than pitching a room of venture capitalists. “They are all unique and all of them will play a very critical role in shaping the future of our society.” Morel stepped to the monitors. He spoke passionately about a post-Scourge renaissance fueled by their research and its implementation.

  Taskar, however, wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the horrors he saw on the screens. It was a freak show of agony, and a thin stream of bile crept up his throat.

  On one screen, a man with a label marked CV-04 was covered in blood. From his nose to his abdomen, there were varying shades of red. It was obvious to Taskar that much of the blood had dried and the fresher, brighter red was new. The man was so thin he appeared skeletal. His veins webbed underneath the surface, his ribs and joints straining against his translucent skin. He was strapped to the stainless steel table at his chest, wrists, and ankles. It was inhuman.

  Another monitor displayed CV-01, a man groaning in pain. He was drenched in sweat. There was a pool of it on the floor to the side of the table. He wasn’t bleeding, but his pants were soiled and thick yellow snot trailed from his nose. His eyes were squeezed closed, his muscles were taut, and his skin was raw and bleeding at the binds. He’d clearly been fighting his restraints.

  But it was CV-02 that Taskar knew would haunt him. The camera was zoomed in on the woman’s gray face. Her white hair covered one open eye, but the other stared back into the lens and through Taskar. Her eyebrows were arched and deep creases ran along the sides of her nose. Her mouth was open as if she were accepting a pill to place on the tongue that hung from her mouth. The picture combined to paint the woman’s final painful moments. It was almost as if she’d died mid-wail.

  He pointed at the monitor, his finger shaking. “That one’s not breathing,” he said. “I think that woman is dead.”

  Morel stopped his dissertation about the common good and survival of the fittest. He snapped his attention to the monitor behind his head. “What?” he asked worriedly. “Oh no. Oh no.”

  Sharp huffed. “Are you serious? Has it flatlined?”

  Morel shuffled back to his desk and picked up an electronic tablet. “I was monitoring her,” he said, tapping the tablet’s screen. “She was recovering. Her vitals had improved, albeit nominally, but they were retracing toward better numbers.”

  Sharp stepped to within a foot of the monitor for CV-04 and growled to Morel, “Retracing? Losing the subject isn’t a nominal improvement. This is not good, Dr. Morel. Not good at all.”

  M
orel stabbed at the tablet with his finger. He bit his lower lip as his eyes scanned the information on the screen in front of him. He stopped, his finger still touching the tablet, and looked up at Sharp. “This could be good,” he said. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

  “What is going on here?” asked Taskar. “What is it you’re doing to these people?”

  “Subjects,” corrected Sharp. “They are subjects. Not patients, not people, subjects.”

  “Remember, Dr. Sharp,” said Morel, “we learn from each of these…subjects. The autopsy will provide valuable information. We chose each of these peop—subjects for their individual characteristics. This one was older, had preexisting anomalies, and was introduced to a variant, concentrated strain of the YPH5N1. It’s maybe a little too aggressive.”

  “Strain?” asked Taskar. “Strain of what?”

  Sharp sighed. “Perhaps,” she said to Morel. “But as I told you, we have a timetable for delivery. We need as many beta introductions as we can achieve in the real world. This lab is one thing. South of the wall is something altogether different.”

  Taskar unconsciously backed away from the wall of monitors, from the mad scientists to whom he’d unknowingly sworn a blood oath.

  Sharp shifted her attention from Morel to Taskar. Her brow furrowed. “What’s your problem?”

  Taskar bumped into a desk, groping at it behind his back to gain his balance. He shook his head in disbelief and pointed at the monitors and his voice croaked when he spoke. “You’re sending them with me?” he asked, not wanting to know the answer. His eyes skipped from one of the scientists to the other and back again. He could tell they were surprised that he was only now understanding his mission. A wave of heat rolled across his body. His stomach gurgled, and his throat was suddenly dry.

  Sharp clicked her heels toward Taskar and spoke softly, the edge having disappeared from her tone. “Have you ever heard the story of Fort Pitt, Timothy?”

  He shook his head. He hadn’t.

  “It was 1763,” she said. “The British were at war with the Native Americans. There was an uprising among the natives in what became Pennsylvania and they were winning. They’d burned the houses of those who lived near the fort, so all of the British settlers were forced to live inside the fort.”

  Taskar shifted his weight uncomfortably. He wiped the sheen of sweat from his temples and ran his finger inside his shirt collar.

  “As you can imagine,” Sharp continued, “this is the eighteenth century and more than a full decade ahead of the American Revolution. Conditions were difficult at best. Add all of those people to the confined fort and the situation was likely untenable. The British military was concerned about the rapid spread of disease, especially because there was already an outbreak of smallpox.”

  Sharp dipped her hands back into her deep lab coat pockets. She began pacing in front of Taskar as she gave her history lesson.

  “There was a man who lived there by the name of William Trent. He wrote in a journal that when two of the Indian chiefs came to broker some sort of surrender with the British, the Brits offered the chiefs some blankets as a token of their respect. Those blankets were infested with smallpox. Not long after there was a smallpox epidemic among the Native Americans that greatly reduced their numbers and lessened the threat.”

  Taskar shook his head. “What are you saying?”

  Sharp crossed the distance between herself and Taskar. She stopped in front of him, inches from his face. “I’m saying you’re a chief and I’m handing you a blanket.”

  “I’m not going,” said Taskar. “I’m not infecting people south of the wall. For what? Why would I do that? You can’t make me.”

  Sharp looked over Taskar’s shoulder and motioned toward Blankenship with her chin. Her tone shifted. “You’re right,” she said with the hint of a knowing smile. “I can’t make you. But what I can do is have Blankenship kill you. Right here, right now.”

  Taskar felt Blankenship’s presence behind him, heard the soft whir of the oxygenator supplying clean air to the postmodern mercenary.

  Sharp shrugged nonchalantly. “We could put a bullet in the back of your head and go get one of our other handsomely paid transporters to take your subject to the destination. Do you like that option?”

  Trembling, Taskar shook his head. He glanced at Morel, who averted his eyes. It was as if the scientist could empathize with Taskar’s plight.

  “Option two would be forcibly injecting you with our beautiful concoction, YPH5N1,” she added. “We could find out if you’re one of the lucky twenty percent who we think are immune. Nobody’s survived it yet, but our research suggests a little more than two in ten won’t contract the illness. We could use you as one of our distribution platforms too. Are you amenable to that?”

  Taskar’s eyes drifted to Morel. He was busy tapping the tablet and seemed to be ignoring Sharp’s sadistic version of Let’s Make A Deal.

  Her smile evaporated. “Then I suggest you do what you’re told,” she snapped. “Blankenship will accompany you on your journey. If you fail to deliver the subject to the agreed location, Blankenship has his orders.”

  Taskar didn’t like any of the options. All of them, he imagined, ended up with his death. Either he ate it now, ate it when not finishing the journey, or ate it when his cargo ultimately infected him through close contact.

  If he chose option one, they’d get someone else to do his job and he’d have gained nothing. Options two and three at least gave him time to figure out a way to avoid spreading the infection to the masses south of the wall. Among his choices, he really had none.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

  “Smart man,” said Sharp. “Let’s get you ready to go.”

  CHAPTER 12

  FEBRUARY 8, 2044, 9:12 AM

  SCOURGE + 11 YEARS, 4 MONTHS

  BAIRD, TEXAS

  The morning brought with it a gentle breeze, high, wispy clouds, and a yellow sun that cast a warm glow across the lake bordering Marcus’s home. There was no hint of rain, nor any sign of the danger to come.

  Marcus had stayed up late learning more about Dallas Stoudenmire, the carrier pigeon of a man who’d warned them about the approaching posse that sought his head. He’d questioned him about who the threat might be.

  “Junior?” Marcus had asked as he boiled water on a single-burner stove. “That’s all you got? No first name, no last name?”

  Stoudenmire couldn’t offer any hints. He’d even described the man and the one named Grissom who rode with him. Nothing rang a bell with Marcus.

  “You’ve killed that many men?” Dallas had asked. “I mean, enough that you got no idea who it could be wants you dead?”

  Marcus had nodded and lowered the heat of the stove. He didn’t want the rolling boil to bubble over the pot’s edges.

  “How many?”

  Marcus had hesitated. He’d watched the water bubble and pop, recounting the faces of the dozens of men he’d killed or been responsible for killing. “Too many.”

  They’d eaten breakfast silently after that. There wasn’t much to say.

  * * *

  Hours later, Marcus stood behind Dallas, his hand on the grip of his holstered Glock. Dallas had his rifle pulled tight against his shoulder. He took aim at a tin can target fifty yards downrange. They’d been there for an hour while Marcus gauged Dallas’s eye.

  Lou stood off to one side, up against the thin trunk of an anemic oak, juggling her knives and whistling the Guns ’n Roses classic “Patience.” Rudy was sitting on a rotting stump, elbows on his knees and Fifty at his feet. The dog’s head rested on his front paws.

  Dallas lowered the weapon and looked over at Lou. “Do you have to whistle?” he asked. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

  Lou pulled a knife out of the air, twirled it with her fingers, and slid it into a scabbard at her hip. She spun the other blade on her finger like it was a basketball.

  “You think it’s gonna be quiet when the s
torm comes?” she asked. “When the posse rides into town on big horses with their guns blazing?”

  “She’s got a point,” said Rudy.

  Lou puckered her lips to start whistling again, but Marcus shot her a look that politely asked her to stop. She rolled her eyes. “Anybody could hit the bull’s-eye with dead silence.”

  Dallas ignored her, rested his finger on the rifle’s trigger, and applied pressure. The rifle kicked against his shoulder, but he kept the muzzle flat. The bullet zipped the fifty yards and pinged straight through the center of the can. It was his tenth consecutive hit.

  “Guess I’m as good as anybody,” drawled Dallas.

  “Don’t mind her,” said Marcus. “She’s an acquired taste.”

  Rudy chuckled. “I’m still trying to acquire it.”

  The men laughed.

  Lou smirked and faked an overly dramatic chuckle. “What’s the point of this?” she asked. “That Arlington here can shoot as well as the rest of us?”

  “It’s Dallas,” said the newcomer.

  “Sorry,” said Lou. “Frisco.”

  He huffed and corrected her again. “Dallas.”

  She smiled and shrugged. “McKinney?”

  Dallas handed the weapon to Marcus and marched toward Lou. He stopped when Fifty raised his head and bared his teeth, snarling a warning to keep his distance. He raised his hands and took a half step back. His eyes stayed on the dog as he addressed Lou. “What’s your problem?” he asked. “I came here to help you guys. You act like I’m the enemy.”

  “Are you asking the dog or me?” said Lou. “The dog thinks you are the enemy.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “People have to earn my respect,” she said. “It doesn’t work the other way around.”

  Dallas looked away from Fifty and the dog grumbled. He yawned, licked his chops, and lowered his head.

  “Okay,” Dallas said, “but that doesn’t explain the nastiness.”

  “Sure it does,” said Marcus. “Lou’s got her reasons not to trust folks. Like most of us, she’s been through a lot and doesn’t take easy to strangers.”