Healers

by Munson, Brad

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing those chicken ranches,” she said with a sidelong glance at New Abraham’s leader. “If you’re still interested in showing them off.”

  Keaton gave a half-shrug. “I think we can arrange that,” he said. “It’d be my pleasure.”

  Stiles was readying a whole new raft of jokes as they plunged back into the frigid weather, but what he saw stopped him.

  There were … people … waiting for him across the street outside the hangar. A small crowd, lined up side by side, and waiting. Staring.

  He recognized the tall blond man in the middle. He had been part of the crowd at the gate, but no one had introduced them. He thought a few of the other faces looked familiar, too, but he wasn’t sure. Now all of them shared one expression: a look that was equal parts hostility and suspicion, and it was leveled at Stiles and every visitor who’d arrived on the Bradley.

  Stiles and his people stopped abruptly as the door slammed behind them. Keaton, at the front of the group, stopped as well. “Hey, Tanner,” he said, calling across the narrow street. “Problems?”

  The blond man looked at him, dead-eyed. Then, without a word, he turned away and began to walk back towards the center of town. The others followed suit. No one spoke.

  “Friendly townsfolk,” Stiles muttered. He glanced at Rebecca who looked back at him, suddenly wary.

  “Yeah,” Keaton said. “But … let’s get you all settled in.”

  They started the short walk back towards the middle of town. “Tanner” and his followers had already disappeared.

  *****

  “Let me tell you about Johnny Appleseed,” Chad Boyarsky said. He smacked his lips and banged his already chipped shot glass back on the bar. “Eileen,” he said, “you fill this up one more time and I swear, I will marry you and bear your children.”

  “Promises, promises,” the stout old tavern owner said. But she poured the Omaha soldier another round and looked happy to do it. She wasn’t keeping tabs – not tonight. Tonight was special.

  Her bar – apparently the only one in town, as far as Stiles could see – was filled with more than half the citizens of New Abraham, all of them celebrating the arrival of the team from Omaha and taking one step closer to the vaccine. Stiles and Rebecca both had started to relax, at least a little. The fuel tech looked great. The eggs were being packed for shipment. It was going to be a good trip.

  “I know all about Johnny Appleseed,” Stiles said to his friend. Boyarsky just shook his head.

  “Probably not,” he said, and took another generous sip from his shot glass. “I bet you think he was just some frontier version of a hippy, scattering seeds all over the place so we could have beautiful, clean fruit on our tables.”

  Stiles just raised an eyebrow. Boyarsky, well-oiled and happy as hell, was clearly on a roll. “Not true?” he said.

  “Not nearly.” Boyarsky stifled a tiny little belch. “You know what happens when you take a seed out of a Golden Delicious apple and plant it in the ground?”

  “You get a tree.”

  “And what do you get out of that tree? A Golden Delicious apple?”

  “Sure.”

  He slapped his hand on the table. “Nope. Not nearly. You get a squishy, ugly, half-sized little crab apple. That’s what you get. Every time.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit at all.” He leaned forward, suddenly intent. Stiles noted how Eileen was smiling at this man. She knew this story already. “You only get those pretty Golden Deliciouses ...” he was happy to stumble on his words, “from seedlings, y’see. Seedlings cut from a Golden Delicious tree, that also came from a seedling that came, generations back, from that first and only Golden Delicious tree. That’s how it works. Seeds alone, all they give you is crab apples. And crab apples are only good for one thing, really.” He held up his half-full shot glass. The amber moonshine inside seemed to glow with a light all its own. “One thing.”

  Half a dozen people went, “Ahhhh …” at the same time. Boyarsky nodded enthusiastically. “Yup. Johnny Appleseed wasn’t a hippie. He was a capitalist. A flippin’ incubator, is what he was. Spreading apple seeds that could make moonshine and hard cider and everything in between, because back in those colonial days, my friends, alcohol was the fuel of our brand new economic engine. Good old-fashioned alcohol.”

  His big, buzz-cut head swayed back to Eileen. “And honey, soon as we get these eggs back to Omaha and get the vaccine out to everybody, then I’m coming back here and we’re gonna take this ‘shine you make from those lovely little crab apples and we are gonna make a fortune.”

  Eileen laughed, but Stiles could see she was charmed to her boots. It was hard not to be. “I’ll be waiting, big guy,” she said.

  A new voice – younger, harder – broke in.

  “That’s a lie,” the new voice said.

  Boyarsky and Stiles – everyone at the Omaha table – turned to the source of the new voice. It was the big blond dude who had been giving them hard eyes back at the ethanol hangar.

  “It’s all bullshit, and it’s time you told us the truth.”

  Stiles carefully, slowly, turned his body to face the man directly. He was standing halfway across the room, leaning against a wooden pillar that held the tavern’s broad roof in place. He had his well-muscled arms folded across his chest, and his sneer was visible for everyone to see in the generous lamp light.

  “There isn’t any vaccine. There never has been.”

  The room began to rumble.

  Stiles took one furtive glance at the front door. Keaton hadn’t arrived yet. Out doing necessary sheriff-like things, he assumed. Now, for the first time, he wished the town’s leader was right beside him.

  “And you are …?”

  Adelina Arctura leaned forward. “That’s Tanner Whitehead,” she said. “Came here with the first wave of new settlers. He’s got … his own set of opinions.”

  Whitehead pushed himself off the pillar with a shrug of the shoulders, his arms still folded. “Not opinions,” he said. “Facts.” Stiles noticed the group of men and women around the man, lining the walls, watching him avidly.

  “And where did you get your ‘facts’?” Rebecca asked. Stiles winced, if only internally, at the edge in her voice. He knew that tone. It scared him just a little.

  “From people I know,” he said. “Not you people, of course. People I trust.”

  Stiles straightened up in his seat. “So what do you think this is all about?” he asked. This was getting serious, and the room was getting very quiet. “This trip from Omaha, this whole deal with the trucks and the eggs? Why would we go to all this trouble?”

  “Oh, you’ve got something there,” Whitehead said, jerking his head in the general direction of the northeast and Nebraska. “Personally, I think it’s a cure. And I think you’re only going to give it to your own people and your friends. And the government, of course. To whoever toes the line.”

  Rebecca was bristling. “There’s not a word of truth in that,” she said. “Not one.”

  Whitehead’s sneer grew even more pronounced. “So you say. But who are you?”

  She started to respond and Stiles put a hand on her arm. What a weird situation, he told himself. Me, being the peacemaker.

  “No matter what you believe, Tanner—”

  “You don’t know me,” the man said, his shoulders rising. “You don’t get to call me by name.”

  “Okay,” Stiles said, putting up a hand. “No matter what you believe, sir – and you’re wrong, completely wrong – what’s the downside for New Abraham? Omaha and the Army have helped all the people here. This was a hole in the ground just six months ago, and barely hanging on before that. Now you’ve got the best food, the best protection, the best tech of any small town in the Midwest, and all we’re asking for is—”

  “—all our food and
all our fuel,” Whitehead finished for him. “And the minute you get it, you’ll pull all that ‘support’ right out from under us, if we don’t do exactly as we’re told.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Boyarsky said. Stiles didn’t like that tone of voice either. “We’re not taking all your food or all your fuel or even all your goddamn eggs. We’re taking just enough to save the goddamn world, man. To save America.”

  “Prove it,” Whitehead said, sticking out his already prominent chin.

  “What do you mean, prove it?” Rebecca demanded. “Give somebody the vaccine right in front of you, then let them get bitten? See if they don’t turn?”

  “If that’s what you’re claiming, yeah. Why not?”

  “That’s insane!”

  “Not my problem!” the blond said, giving it back to her at the same level. Stiles could see his cronies straightening up, itching for a fight. “We’re not just going to take your word for it! We’re not just going to bend over and—”

  “What would you do?” Stiles said, coming in low but strong, trying to take the edge off the confrontation. “What’s your idea?”

  “We keep what’s ours,” Whitehead said, not missing a beat. “Sell our fuel and food to the highest bidder. If that’s Omaha, fine, but we reap the benefits, we get to be the bosses—”

  Boyarsky, only half-fueled by the ‘shine, was on his feet. “That’s what it’s about, isn’t it? Who gets to be boss. The power. Not what’s right, not what’s best for your people or your country. Just—”

  “Hey.”

  Another new voice – a familiar one, this time – came from just inside the entrance. Sheriff Keaton had finally arrived.

  Stiles was acutely aware of the Smith & Wesson at the lawman’s hip. He dared to glance longingly at the shadow of his Winchester, waiting for him in the coat-check/gun room just a few feet from Keaton and far, far away from Stiles himself.

  The Dentist, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright, stepped through the front door behind him. She suppressed a look of surprise. Obviously she had hoped to make a quiet entrance, after the sheriff had settled in. But now ...

  Keaton took two deceptively casual steps forward, putting himself almost directly between Whitehead and Boyarsky. “I thought this was supposed to be a party,” he said mildly. “Not a political debate.”

  “Maybe it’s time we had one,” Whitehead said, pushing his advantage.

  “You know the deal,” Keaton said, surveying the room, taking stock. “We’ve got a full and free election planned for the Fourth of July. You were at the town meeting where—”

  “And by then, the damage will be done,” Whitehead spat back. “We’ll be completely under their control, just another slave-state.”

  “Damage?” Boyarsky said, his fists clenched. “Damage? After all we’ve—”

  Keaton’s hand moved – just a little. He didn’t touch his gun, didn’t even get close, but that subtle motion was more than enough to remind everyone what was going on and what was at stake.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “Everybody. That’s enough. Eileen, why don’t we put on some music? Last round for everybody on me. Then we call it a night.”

  For the longest moment, nobody spoke – not Stiles, not Whitehead, no one. Then Stiles, absolutely intentionally, turned away from Whitehead, back to the barkeep, and said, “Can I get a twist of lemon in mine?”

  The tension broke. People laughed. Whitehead immediately saw that he’d lost the room, lost his advantage. His shoulders slumped a fraction. He took a step back, then turned away.

  “I’m out of here,” he said. “Come on.” About a third of the people in the room, a strange assortment of younger and older citizens, merchants and farmers and guards alike, followed him out.

  Keaton put a hand on Boyarsky’s broad, too-tense shoulder. “Hey, Chad,” he said, “Let me get you a last taste of that most excellent moonshine.”

  Boyarsky shook his head, just once. He got himself back under control. “Okay,” he said, swallowing his anger. “Okay.”

  As he sat down carefully, still watching the room, Keaton caught the look he was getting from Stiles. He nodded briefly as he settled in. The Dentist took the seat next to him, watchful and wordless as ever.

  “Yeah,” Keaton said. “We have to talk.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The moment Mbutu Ngasy stepped out of the chopper, he felt as if he was visiting another planet. Nothing about Fort McCoy resembled Omaha – or the Ramage, or his airport in Ethiopia, or anywhere else he’d ever visited.

  In this one place, maybe on all the Earth, it felt as if Morningstar had never happened. Steady electricity flowed everywhere. There were computers and cell phones that worked within the base itself, though no farther. There was abundant food on demand, an endless supply of clean clothes, and central heating. Perhaps that one thing meant more to Mbutu than any other: blessed, continuous, uninterrupted heat. He hadn’t felt that in months, and those months had come to feel like a lifetime.

  His own quarters were very near the central command, a tidy little room with all the “necessities,” they said, including items like clean towels every day and as much hot water for showers as he cared to use. For Mbutu, these were no longer “necessities” at all; they were luxuries he had almost forgotten had ever existed, and had long since assumed he would never experience again.

  Then there were the monitors, mounted everywhere. It seemed they were on every wall, in every room, even two in his own private living space. They were connected to an elaborate base-wide communications system, and offered six channels of audio and video feeds. No old TV shows or sitcoms, thankfully, but a great deal of information gathered since the first cases of Morningstar appeared in Africa. They provided windows on the rest of the world, including one continuous feed that showed the devastation that the virus had brought to billions. Mbutu watched the medical channel for a while, and quickly absorbed the base orientation programs on Channel 0, including up-close-and-personal profiles of the leadership, all the while wondering, Who is doing all this? Where do they find the time?

  He had been at McCoy only a short while when a bright-eyed young blonde officer tapped on his door. She smiled as if she was greeting an old friend. “Denise McKendrick,” she said, shaking his hand firmly and warmly. “I’m your liaison here at McCoy.” Mbutu liked her immediately; it was almost impossible not to. “I’ll answer any questions you have, help you get whatever you need … but right now, I know that the Vice President wants to meet you.”

  As they made the short walk, mostly indoors, to the above-ground versions of the exec offices, Lieutenant McKendrick apologized for not greeting him when he landed. “Lots going on,” she said. “And the Veep has been nursing a nasty cold and a bad back. Nothing serious,” she added hastily, “we all are checked for Morningstar every time we sneeze – but enough to take him back a step.”

  “I understand,” Mbutu said. “It was not necessary.” She nodded, and then they were there, in front of a thick walnut door with a small brass plate mounted in the exact center. He had no time to read it before McKendrick tapped on the door with one short, sensible fingernail and swept it open.

  The Vice President was waiting inside, in the reception room outside his own small office. His handshake was even warmer than McKendrick’s – a trifle too warm for Mbutu’s taste, actually. “So glad to see you here,” he said, deep in “politician” mode. “So happy you finally made it. A big day. A big day.” McKendrick has already told him it would be a while before Mbutu was allowed to actually meet the President himself. Even now, even here, the chief executive was under constant guard, his flesh-and-blood exposure to others carefully regulated.

  That first meeting with the Veep had been very short and very shallow, exactly as Mbutu had expected. And, as with all politicians he’d ever met, he’d saved the only meaningful words until the
very end: “There’s a major operation about to begin. If you’d like to observe, you’re welcome to join us.”

  Mbutu accepted the invitation without hesitation; it was only after another round of handshakes and a quick exit from the executive offices that McKendrick gave him any details.

  In the dark, chaotic weeks after Morningstar invaded the continental U.S., the Army had struggled to keep control of its most valuable assets: its military bases, filled with personnel, equipment, and supplies that could literally save the world. They had been only partially successful. Some had fallen to the infected; others had been stolen from them by the rebellious elements that would become the RSA. Cape Canaveral was lost to the sprinters and shamblers; Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base near San Diego had been overwhelmed as well, despite a valiant last stand (a few hundred had actually escaped to sea, and had reunited with the armed forces farther to the north.) The most devastating loss was Mount Weather, the center of operations for FEMA and the designated home for an evacuated U.S. command. But the RSA had seized it and destroyed the FNARS, the FEMA National Radio System that should have kept all government and military installations in touch during the emergency. They cut themselves off and ultimately transformed Mount Weather into the RSA’s own nearly impenetrable headquarters. Almost as bad, Edwards Air Force Base in California had joined the RSA as well, and became – more by default than design – the final, essential uplink to the United States’ fleet of satellites that still orbited the earth.

  “We need those satellites,” McKendrick said. “It’s that simple. The RSA controls most of the nuclear arsenal and ninety percent of intelligence and communications because of them, and we’ll never bring them down until it’s ours.”

  Mbutu came to like the young woman even more with every sentence. She was plainspoken but still somehow positive. If she couldn’t answer a question for security reasons, she would tell him so. If she didn’t know the answer, she’d admit it. She was a rare and welcome combination of high intelligence and low ego-involvement.