Survivors

by Z. A. Recht

  The voice outside answered immediately. “It’s, uh, me. Mark. I heard you screaming. Are you all right?”

  He sounded genuinely concerned. Rebecca closed her eyes and sighed. Of course. Stiles wouldn’t have known about her nightmares.

  “I—I’m fine,” Rebecca said, without opening her eyes. She remembered who it was she had just shot in the dream, and clenched her jaw once more. “I . . . saw a mouse. That’s all.”

  “Oh,” Stiles said. “Okay. Just wanted to make sure you were all right. Uh, good night.”

  Rebecca lay still until she heard Stiles’s footsteps fade, and the muffled click as his own door swung shut. There was no way she was going to fall asleep again. She could feel it. The nightmare had been different from the others, and it stuck with her, wiring her awake. She sat upright, letting the covers fall away. She hadn’t even bothered to undress before retiring, so she simply rose and walked across the room to the only other piece of furniture it had: a simple wooden desk and swiveling office chair. On the desk, neatly arranged in a row, were medical volumes Anna had given to Rebecca to better learn the nuances of assisting a researcher in BL4.

  Rebecca pulled open a desk drawer, withdrew a candle and a book of matches, and lit the former, bathing the desk in a dull glow. She pulled out the third volume, bookmark protruding from the middle, and began to read, trying to lose herself in the text.

  Omaha, NE

  1 July 2007

  0834 hrs_

  BELOW, IN THE BL4 laboratory, Anna Demilio was beginning to feel exhaustion setting in. Lack of food and sleep conspired against her. She sat in her blue Chemturion suit on a stool in the lab, staring at the small cage containing the inoculated lab rat. The hiss of air entering her suit from a hanging valve threatened to lull her into a doze. She had always been a sucker for white noise, and the escaping air drowned out lesser sounds.

  Slowly, her head slipped forward, hands sliding from her lap to her knees. Only when she had nearly slipped free from the stool did she reawaken with a start, straightening herself out and looking around as if to catch anyone who might have seen her nod off.

  “God, what time is it?” Anna muttered behind the thick faceplate of her suit. She couldn’t wear a watch into BL4—and even if she could, she wouldn’t be able to see it through the suit’s protective sleeves. But such was her level of exhaustion that she looked anyway before catching herself and rolling her eyes. She shifted her position to catch a glimpse of the clock hung on the wall, just above the lab’s exit doors, and sighed. “Morning again.”

  Anna swiveled on her stool to face the lab rat’s cage once more.

  “Well, little buddy, it’s been almost a day since you were given some Stiles blood. Time for another sample.”

  Anna reached into the cage and plucked out the rat. It squirmed in her hand, but she kept a tight hold on it as she fetched a hypodermic with her free limb. A moment later, she had drawn the blood sample and replaced the rodent in its cage.

  Blood sample in hand, Anna unhooked her air hose and walked briskly across the lab to a station where a bank of microscopes awaited. Once there, she hooked herself up to a new air nozzle and breathed a sigh of relief as cool air rushed through her Chemturion suit once more.

  She spent the next few minutes preparing to view the rat’s blood sample, slipping the sample under the telescopic eye of the microscope. She pressed her eye in as close as the suit would allow, squinting to see better. A long moment passed. Anna’s mouth fell open slowly.

  Anna shot to her feet, knocking the stool behind her to the ground. She turned and ran for the exit, but forgot about the air hose attached to her suit, yanking herself backward. She cursed, her hands trembling in excitement as she ripped the nozzle free and bolted for the decon room. Inside, the spray of disinfectant that washed over her seemed to take hours.

  This is big. This is very big.

  Finally, the decon showers shut off to a trickle, and the light beside the second exit door blinked over from red to green. Anna shoved it open with her shoulder, tearing the duct tape from the joints of her suit as she went. For a moment, she considered changing back into her regular clothes. She decided against it, pausing only to yank the helmet from her head and toss it on a bench as she passed by on her way out.

  The final door to BL4 was opened by access code, both for those entering and exiting. Anna, in her excitement, punched in the wrong code twice before she hit the correct sequence and the heavy steel dead bolts in the door swung back.

  Anna tore down the ramp that led to BL4 and through the swinging double doors. She ran past the other biolabs, which the survivors had taken to using for storage and, in the case of BL1, their infirmary. Her feet slapped the floor and echoed in the empty hallway.

  As Anna passed BL1, Mason leaned up on his elbow from his bed to see what the commotion was.

  “Anna?” he called out. “What’s the matter?” Then, noting her odd attire, he added, “Anna, are you all right?”

  Anna Demilio didn’t answer. She ran right on past the open doorway, and out of sight. She heard Mason say, “Well, good morning to you, too, Doc,” before the heavy click of the stairwell door swinging shut cut him off.

  Anna took the steps up to the Fac’s main floor three at a time, grasping at the handrail as she went. She burst into the hallway, looked left and right, and spotted Francis Sherman just emerging from his room, preparing for the day’s outing.

  “Frank!” she yelled.

  Sherman turned, a surprised look on his face, his hands still working on the last button of his shirt. “Good morning, Anna. What’s the—”

  “It worked!”

  Sherman narrowed his eyes and fixed Anna with a stare. “What worked?”

  “It worked! Stiles’s blood worked! I injected a rat yesterday and infected it with Morningstar and today I took a blood sample and the immune response is—”

  Sherman cut her off. “Whoa! Whoa. Slow down and try again. What happened, now?”

  Anna took a deep breath to steady herself. “The experimental vaccine. The one I cultured from Stiles’s blood sample. It worked, Frank. It worked. The infected rat isn’t showing a single symptom. The Morningstar in its bloodstream is still there, but it hasn’t infected any of the rat’s blood cells. They’re fighting off the virus!”

  Sherman’s face broke into a grin. “You mean we have the vaccine?”

  Anna sucked in a breath and glanced at the ground. “Sort of.”

  Frank frowned at her. “I had a feeling there would be a catch.”

  “I still need to test it on a human subject,” Anna hastened to explain. “I mean, there’s still a ton of observation to be done with the rats, too. Rats and people are two different systems, even though they’re pretty close, which is why we use the rats in the first place, but I don’t know where we can find a human test subject—”

  “Just ask for a volunteer,” Sherman suggested. “I’m sure any number of us would be willing.”

  Anna shook her head. “You don’t understand, Frank. If something goes wrong in the human test—if the vaccine doesn’t take—the volunteer, well . . .”

  Frank finished for her. “The volunteer would become one of them.”

  Anna nodded, and quietly mouthed, “Yes.”

  A third voice, confident and calm, broke in on the conversation.

  “I know where you can get your volunteers.”

  Anna and Sherman turned. Standing in the doorway to his room was Trevor Westscott, chewing on the end of an unlit cigarette. He had one hand resting in his pocket. The other twirled a pack of paper matches deftly between fingers.

  “Who?” asked Anna.

  Trev jerked a thumb over his shoulder down the corridor. “Use the prisoners. Maybe Brewster was right after all. Maybe there was a good reason to keep them alive.”

  Anna looked undecided for a moment, but finally shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

  “You can’t?” protested Trev, narrowing his eyes. “D
id you forget these are the guys that held guns to your head? The same guys that killed Matt? The same ones that would’ve killed us all, if we’d given them the chance? Use ’em, I say.”

  “I can’t,” repeated Anna. “It’d be . . . unethical. I’d feel like . . . like Dr. Wirths in Auschwitz. No, I need a volunteer.”

  Trevor sighed and folded his arms across his chest. “It’d be much easier to just stick those two assholes, and to hell with their feelings.”

  Anna shook her head.

  Sherman decided to change the subject. “If you get a human volunteer, how long until you can have the vaccine up and running?”

  “Well, if the vaccine works on a human body, then it’s already complete. We’d just need to start producing it.”

  “And what do you need to do that?” Sherman asked.

  “I just need to culture some more antibodies from Stiles’s blood sample and distribute them into individual doses. I need some incubators and eggs. Chickens? Frank, look, I can’t tell you how excited I am right now. These things can take years—decades—to develop. This vaccine is like magic. One day we don’t have it—the next day, we’ve got an immune lab rat. This is like winning the lottery.”

  Sherman’s curiosity was piqued. He called over his shoulder. “Thomas!”

  The grizzled NCO poked his head out of a doorway, looking left and right until he spotted Sherman. “Sir?”

  “Tell Denton to take over the run today. He’s in charge. You and I are going down to the labs. Anna’s on to something and I want us both there. Oh, and grab Stiles, just in case. Might need more of his blood. And get Rebecca!” Sherman added. “Maybe she can help.”

  Trevor, meanwhile, had turned back to his room, yanking equipment from a battered wooden chest at the foot of his makeshift cot. He muttered to himself.

  The group that assembled in the Fac’s entry hall was slimmer than usual.

  Brewster, shouldering an empty knapsack, grimaced at the head count. “We’re missing some people,” he muttered.

  “Yeah,” added Denton. “Where’s Frank? And Thomas? I thought we were all going out on this run. Risking all our asses at once, as it always is, eh?”

  “Me, too,” muttered Brewster, checking the barrels of his shotgun to make certain they were loaded. He snapped the break-action closed with a metallic click, satisfied. “I suppose rank has its privileges.”

  The twin doors leading deeper into the Fac swung open, pushed apart by Command Sergeant Major Thomas. His expression was blank.

  “Change of plans,” he said in his trademark growl. “Sherman is indisposed, and won’t be joining us today. Stiles!”

  Mark Stiles, busily sorting through a box of assorted equipment liberated from the surrounding buildings, stopped and looked up. “Sergeant Major?”

  “Drop what you’re doing and hoof it downstairs to the BL wing. Sherman and Demilio want you there, ASAP. Where’s Hall?” asked Thomas, hands on his hips, eyes scanning the room.

  “Here,” came Rebecca’s soft voice from the corner. She was curled up in a chair, her face buried in a six-month-old magazine. She’d read it enough times that she could nearly recite the articles verbatim, but she read on, anyway.

  “That goes for you, too. BL4. Sherman and Demilio will be waiting on both of you. Come on, come on, we don’t have all day!” Thomas ordered, gesturing toward the doors.

  Rebecca tossed the magazine on an end table and stood lazily, stretching, a yawn escaping her lips. “All right, all right. I’m going.”

  Stiles held the swinging doors open for the young medic. She passed through without a word of thanks. Casting a bemused glance over his shoulder at the other survivors, Stiles followed Rebecca, letting the door swing shut behind him. The pair walked off down the hallway together, heading for the stairs that led to the biosafety laboratories below.

  “Guess you’re in charge, then, eh, Thomas?” asked Denton with a grin. “Seeing as Sherman’s unavailable.”

  “No,” drawled Thomas, crossing his arms across his chest. “They want me down there, too. You’re in charge.”

  The Canadian seemed taken aback. “Wait—what, me? I’m a photographer! I can’t lead worth hell. Pick Brewster or something.”

  Brewster quickly shook his head. “Oh, no. No, no, no. That never works out well. Once, in Basic, they made me squad leader. Lasted a whole day. No.”

  “What happened?” asked Jack, a grin on his lips.

  Brewster opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, and shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But they took me out as squad leader that same night. Let’s just leave it at that, okay?”

  Jack shrugged.

  “At least I finally get to go see some action,” said Junko Koji, shouldering a knapsack of her own and strapping a pistol belt around her slim waist. “It’s about time I got to go out.”

  Thomas frowned. “Sorry, Juni. We still need someone to watch the front doors.”

  Juni froze, and fixed Thomas with a look that might have melted a lesser man into a steaming puddle. Her voice was acid. “Frank said every available hand. I’m an available hand. I’m going.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Thomas. “Orders.”

  “I’m not in your goddamned Army!” shouted Juni. “Your orders don’t mean shit to me!”

  The rest of the occupants of the room had fallen silent, and were watching the back-and-forth intently, as might a group of tennis spectators.

  “And if you go,” said Thomas, calmly, “who’ll let us back in when we return?”

  “Get someone else to do it. The new guy isn’t going, what’s his name, Allen. Let him handle the doors. Why is it always me?”

  “You’re the youngest. You’re the least experienced. I could go on,” said Thomas.

  Juni threw up her arms in exasperation. “This is bullshit. That’s b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t, bullshit. I can handle myself out there!”

  “Nobody’s doubting you, Juni.”

  “Sure seems that way.” The slight Japanese girl sulked down into a cushioned chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Fine. But don’t expect to get in without using the right password, this time.”

  “Okay,” said Denton, drawing in a breath, the weight of command settling squarely on his shoulders. “Gear up. Empty packs, and weapons and ammo. First aid kits?”

  “Got mine,” said Brewster.

  “In a cargo pocket,” chimed Jack.

  “Okay!” Mitsui threw a thumbs-up.

  “All right, gents and ladies, let’s get to it,” said Denton. “Remember, we’re just making a circuit around the outer block, then heading straight back in. Get anything you can—especially food.”

  “We know, man, we know,” said Brewster, buckling a vest across his chest. He tucked a Beretta into the cross-draw holster on the breast of the garment, nodded, and looked back at Denton. “We’ll all make it back.”

  Denton nodded in agreement. “Especially if we all watch our backs. Keep an eye on any shadowy spots. You know how those infected bastards like to lurk in there.”

  Nods all around.

  “Okay. Any final questions?”

  No hands were raised.

  “Let’s get to it, gang.”

  A moment later, sunlight streamed into the Fac’s reception room. The foraging party moved out.

  “Sawyer, Delaney. Lots of activity out front of the target’s entrance. Looks like a whole group of them exiting the building, over.”

  Sawyer was on the outskirts of Omaha, urinating against a rusting pickup truck. He cursed, shook, and zippered the front of his black BDU trousers. It took him a moment to answer, but eventually he clicked the handset of his radio.

  “How many, over?”

  “Uh, hard to get a count, sir. They’re all bunched up,” was Delaney’s reply. “I want to say all of them. Let me see. Looks like half a dozen, sir, over.”

  “Their direction, over?”

  “Uh, they’re splitting up, sir. Half head
ing north, the other half east. Looks like they’re out scavenging for more supplies, sir. Over.”

  Jackals that they are, Sawyer thought to himself. Picking at leftovers.

  “Shall we engage, sir? Sadler has a sight picture on one of them right now. We could—”

  “Negative, negative,” came Sawyer’s response. His first serious read had been Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Divide and conquer, the old master had advised. Sawyer had taken the words to heart. “Hold fire. We’ve got them where we want them, now. There should only be a few people left in that building. One of them will be Anna Demilio. We should know their door code by now. Get the men ready. We’re about to move into town. Sawyer, out.”

  “Yes, sir!” came the enthusiastic reply. “Mustering the men. Out.”

  Denton had split the foraging group into two. With him, he had Mbutu and Trevor. The other group consisted of Brewster, Jack, and Mitsui. The plan was to swing around in a pincer, searching building after building, then meet up finally at an intersection two miles from the Fac.

  Denton found the streets eerie, even in broad daylight. He felt like ghosts of the past were all around him. Sale signs still hung in dirt-streaked windows, and cars still lined the sidewalks, parking meters all in the red. It always felt to him as though time had stopped one day, that human beings had simply vanished, and left behind these eclectic tombstones to mark their passing.

  “It is a nice day,” said Mbutu, breaking the silence. Denton liked Mbutu’s way of talking. It sounded proper, perfect. He enunciated each syllable, each letter. It had a calming effect on the photojournalist. “In Kenya, a nice day meant it was hot, but not so hot you couldn’t go outside. Here, a hot day is like early spring in Mombasa. Cooling to the skin. Refreshing.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” said Trev, wiping sweat from his forehead as he trudged along the asphalt. “To me, this is what a taste of hell must be like. Too goddamn hot.”

  Ahead of the trio was a line of town houses, each one identical to its neighbor. Denton eyed them, and decided it was as good a place as any to start.