by Dirk Patton
“Bring it out.”
A few seconds passed before I heard a heavily muffled engine start from inside the transport. Without my enhanced hearing, I doubt I would have been able to detect the sound. Moving clear, I glanced over my shoulder as Chico drove a UTV, or Utility Task Vehicle, down the ramp onto the tarmac.
It looked similar to the two-passenger, four-wheeled off-road buggies that had been so popular with the civilian market, but this one had been heavily modified to suit the needs of Special Forces operating in the Middle East. Able to handle virtually any terrain, it could hit speeds well in excess of seventy miles an hour in the right conditions.
This was going to be Nicole’s transportation. She’d received some intensive instruction in operating the vehicle from Master Chief Gonzales and a squad of SEALs before we’d left Hawaii. Within a couple of hours, they’d had her screaming up and down the technical training course like a veteran driver.
Chico pulled it to the side of the aircraft and shut down the engine. I called the rest of the team out and spent a few minutes going over the vehicle with Nicole, even though we’d already done this before leaving Oahu.
“Eighty gallons of fuel,” I said, tapping a series of tanks that were strapped to improvised racks on the roof and rear of the vehicle. “It’s gonna handle like a pig until those upper tanks are used up. You’re going to be top heavy, so watch yourself. Sudden turns or driving across a slope could end badly.”
She looked at me and nodded. Again, we’d already been over this. But I’d rather talk about it twice than have her run into a problem and be left without transportation.
“Two weeks’ worth of MREs and water.” I pointed at more gear strapped to the hood before moving to the passenger seat. “Extra clothing. Weapons. Ammo. Fuel pellets for starting a fire. Maps. Compass. GPS is gone, so be sure you’re hitting your waypoints, or you could end up lost. They’re marked on the maps. Staying on course is important. Lots of canyons and rivers and mountains in the way. There isn’t time for backtracking.”
I stood there, looking over the vehicle and realized we’d just done this less than three hours ago. Nicole was quite possibly the smartest person on the planet, and she’d paid close attention.
“Questions?”
She shook her head, eyes roving over the UTV.
“You okay?” I asked gently, looking her in the eye.
She swallowed hard and bobbed her head up and down once.
“Just a case of nerves, I guess.”
“Look,” I said, pausing until she met my gaze. “I watched you do something amazing in Nevada. More than once. You weren’t scared, you just did what needed to be done. And you saved lives. This... well, this isn’t just saving lives, it’s saving our species. You’ll be okay.”
We stared at each other for a long moment before she took a deep breath and nodded.
“You good?” I asked, reaching out and touching her arm.
“I’m good,” she said, trying a smile that almost worked. “Just want to get it over with.”
“That makes two of us,” I said with a grin.
Escorting her back inside the plane to wait with Vance, I came back out and made assignments. Lucas and Chico would stay on the tarmac outside the transport to provide security. Martinez, Drago and Johnson followed as I led the way to the closest hangar.
It was pitch black inside and I couldn’t see anything, even with my virus enhanced eyes. After a few moments spent testing the air, I didn’t scent any infected lying in wait and clicked on the light mounted to my rifle’s rail. Panning it around, I didn’t spot the equipment we needed to tow the Stealth Hawk out of the transport.
“Let’s try that one,” Martinez said softly, pointing at another hangar several hundred yards away with a dirt streaked Pave Hawk sitting outside.
I nodded, signaled to the rest of the team and took off at a fast trot. With nothing but flat, open tarmac around me, the cold wind tore at my clothes and gear. I was pleasantly surprised to find that despite the weather my muscles were warm and loose. Another effect of the virus? I could only guess that was the case since this was the first time I had been in anything other than summer temperatures since becoming infected.
The hangar was closed up tight and after trying a door, I waved Johnson forward to pop the lock. There was nothing electronic or special about this one, just a good old-fashioned key was all that was needed. Or a set of picks in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing.
“Still remember how to do this?” I couldn’t resist asking as he dropped to a knee and started working.
“I know this lock is from your generation, sir, but...” there was a soft snick as the bolt retracted, then he pulled the door open, “that just makes it simpler.”
He stood with a grin as I flipped him off, then grasped the knob and waited, looking at me. Rifle up and ready, I nodded and he pulled the door open. Cold, damp air with the sharp tang of grease and oil flowed out, wrinkling my nose. I gave it a couple of moments before stepping into the opening and clicking the light on again. Parked against the far wall were three tugs that would do the job we needed.
“Tugs are in there, but how the hell are we gonna get them out?” I asked the team as I stepped back.
A massive set of rolling doors were closed, securing the hangar. Each one probably weighed a couple of tons and without electricity to power the motors that moved them, I had no clue what to do.
“Use a tug,” Johnson said. “Should be a maintenance release on the motors that will let the doors move freely. Throw a chain on one and pull it open. Only need to move it far enough to drive the tug through.”
“Okay,” I said without hesitating. “You and Drago make it happen.”
They hustled through the door as Martinez and I faced away toward the open tarmac to keep an eye on the surrounding area. Soon there was the whine of a starter from inside the hangar. It cranked for a long time before the engine sputtered to life and went into a loping idle.
“Shit’s breaking down,” I said quietly. “Not going to be long before engines won’t start, even if we bring fuel and fresh batteries.”
“Kind of surprised that hasn’t happened already,” Martinez said.
There were some muted thumps from the far side of the closest hangar door. They were disconnecting the drive motor. Then came the clank of a chain and the tug’s engine roared. With a squeak of dry bearings, the door moved a few feet and we stepped clear as Johnson drove through the gap. Martinez hopped on to catch a ride as Drago and I jogged along behind.
The tug’s engine continued to complain about the old fuel it was drinking and there were a couple of times when I thought it was going to just give up and grind to a halt. Somehow, it kept running and finally made it to the waiting transport. Martinez jumped off as Johnson drove up the ramp into the cargo bay, shouting instructions as he drew closer to the Stealth Hawk. Drago and I joined Lucas and Chico, taking up positions around the plane and staying out of the way.
There was lots of engine revving and it was easy to clearly hear Martinez’s frustrated shouts. When she switched to cursing at Johnson in Spanish, I glanced at Chico who was grinning from ear to ear.
“What?” I asked.
“Miss hearing a pissed off chica,” he said, still smiling. “Reminds me of home.”
He leaned to the side and looked up the ramp.
“They gettin’ it worked out, or do I need to intervene?” I asked.
“You go in there, you’re about the bravest man I’ve ever seen,” he laughed. Then, “Nah. They got it handled.”
There was one last shout from Martinez, then she strode down the ramp and moved to the side as the tug’s engine roared. She stood with hands on her hips, her dark eyes flashing as Johnson slowly emerged, pulling the Stealth Hawk along at a snail’s pace. Seeing her face, I hid a smile and turned away. She had everything well in hand.
Five minutes later, Johnson brought the big helo to a halt a hundred yards away fr
om the transport. Vance and Nicole stood at the bottom of the ramp, watching as Johnson and Martinez disconnected the tug then set about repositioning the main rotor blades to flight configuration. They recruited Chico’s help and with Martinez’s sharp tongue giving them instructions they were done quickly.
I walked over as Martinez began a pre-flight inspection of the exterior. While she did this, Drago and Lucas double checked the security of a lifting harness that had been attached to the UTV.
“All good?” I asked, watching her open a panel and check something that I had no idea what it was.
“So far.”
She closed the access panel, double checked its security and moved on without taking her eyes off the helicopter. I let her go about her business as Nicole walked up.
“Almost ready?” Nicole asked.
“Story of my life. Waiting on a woman!” I said loudly.
Nicole looked at me, then a surprised smile spread across her face.
“Don’t have to wait,” Martinez called. “You can start walking whenever you want. Sir.”
“You’d miss me too much.”
She said something in Spanish that earned a snort of laughter from Chico, then it was time to go. I helped Nicole strap into a web sling in the troop compartment as Martinez started the engines. By the time I was secured next to her in the cockpit, we were ready to go and she lifted us into a hover.
I listened to her communicating with Chico over the radio, leaning to the side and looking down but not able to see anything. He and Johnson were directly beneath the helicopter, hooking the lifting harness onto a series of cleats that could be released from within the cockpit. When she received confirmation, Martinez took us higher and began to slowly feed in forward motion.
“Salt Lake’s that way,” I said, pointing slightly to the right of the centerline of the aircraft.
“Really?” Martinez cried loudly in a breathy imitation of Marilyn Monroe. “Well, I sure am glad there’s someone here to help me find the way! Don’t know what I’d do without such a big, strong man.”
“You’re not funny,” I said, laughing despite my words. “In fact, you’re a royal pain in the ass. I ever tell you that?”
“Just wait,” she chuckled. “You’re having a girl and Mavis is almost a teen. Think I’m bad, you ain’t seen nothin’!”
50
Martinez occasionally checked a couple of instruments, but otherwise just kept us on a straight and level path. It’s only about two hundred and fifty air miles from Mountain Home Air Force Base to Salt Lake City, but because of the less than aerodynamic UTV hanging beneath us, she was forced to keep our speed down. Once I was able to identify the right gauge, I was surprised to see we were only traveling at seventy knots.
Our destination was Brigham City, about fifty miles north of Salt Lake City, which was still packed with infected. There were so many in the area that they’d spilled out into the surrounding countryside. This was as close as we could safely get without stirring them up. I’d decided this was one of those occasions that called for a bit of discretion.
“How are they still alive?”
Martinez’s voice over the intercom startled me out of my thoughts.
“What? Who?”
“The infected. Who else would I be talking about?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, not getting her point and earning a dramatic sigh.
“They’ve been jammed in there for months, right?”
“Yeah. I was here with Chico and Drago probably... well, feels like years ago but was more likely something like six or eight months. Maybe a little more. They were here then.”
“Okay, so, what are they eating? Drinking? They’re still human, so there has to be something.”
I thought about that for a few moments and decided to voice some of the thoughts I’d had.
“Got a sneaky feeling there aren’t going to be very many males. I’m betting a lot of pregnant females, or a mix of pregnant and infants. Remember what we saw at that casino where Roach was holding Katie?”
“Ohhhh... mierda! You think the females are eating the males?”
She looked at me with an expression of disgust.
“Seen it more than a couple of times. They mate, then they kill. Some sort of instinctual thing going on is my bet. They need the nutrition to carry the baby, and from what I’ve seen, the males would be a threat to the children.”
We were quiet for a long moment as Martinez thought about what I’d just said.
“He’s right.”
We’d both forgotten that I’d given Nicole a headset and she was able to hear us over the intercom.
“How do you know?” Martinez asked.
“I’ve been around the females. Pregnant as well as new mothers. They have this way of communicating. There are these very quiet sounds they make. I was the only one able to hear them. They were expressing emotions and needs. There’s also a hormonal component that is excreted in their sweat. Combine it all together and you have a primitive form of language.”
“So, how did you figure out they’re killing and eating the males from that?” Martinez asked.
“That’s their primary concern. A food source. And the ones who aren’t pregnant respond to help the ones who are. Hunt for them. Protect them.”
“What’s going to happen when all the males are gone?” I asked.
“Don’t know for sure, but I’ve had time to think about it and can make some guesses.”
“Guess away,” Martinez said. “We’ve got another ninety minutes.”
“Okay, so this is based solely on what I’ve observed, but I believe that only the females who are the most fertile are mating. What I mean is those who have reached puberty through their early twenties. From a natural selection process, that makes sense. If they’re killing the males after sex, that means there’s only one shot for a pregnancy. That single opportunity can’t be wasted, so Mother Nature is selecting the most likely candidates.
“Consider that for a minute. We’ve got females that are in their early teens through early twenties acting as breeding stock, if you will. That leaves all the other adult females available to hunt for them and protect them. From a purely biological standpoint, a thirty-five-year-old woman is significantly less likely to become pregnant from only one coupling than say an eighteen-year-old.
“The older woman is also much more likely to develop problems with a pregnancy than a girl half her age. On the flip side of that scenario, she is almost certainly a more formidable predator and defender than the younger one.”
“You’re actually saying there’s some intelligence behind what they’re doing and why?” I asked.
“Not intelligence,” Nicole said quickly. “Instinct. In the modern world we live in... well, lived in... the notion of humans doing instinctual things was all but gone. And if a scientist or researcher happened to bring it up, they were met with derision and sometimes outright vitriol.
“No matter how smart we think we are, or how advanced our technology may become, at the end of the day we’re still the same biological organism that used to live in caves. Behavior can be suppressed, and for the most part has been over the centuries, but the entire construct of modern society was nothing more than a façade that hid our true nature.”
“Wait,” Martinez interjected before Nicole could continue. “Are you trying to say the infected are the real human race?”
“No, no, no. Not at all. I’m saying that beneath all that rage, they are still human. And still have the same instincts. The females don’t understand how they know who should and shouldn’t mate, they just do. They don’t understand why one group of females will care for and protect another, they just do. That’s instinctual. The drive to perpetuate the species. To remove dangers to that drive, even if they need the males to become pregnant.”
By this time, my head was hurting. I didn’t disagree with anything Nicole had said, but it sounded like she’d spent way too much time thinking abo
ut this.
“Do you feel the urges?” Martinez asked.
It seemed like a long time before Nicole answered.
“Yes. I feel the desire to protect and nurture. I used to want a baby in the worst way. Even considered going to a sperm bank and being a single mother not that many years ago. But now, I’m repulsed by the idea. Sure, it could be the logical part of me rejecting the notion of bringing a new life into what’s left of the world, but I think it’s much more than that. Besides, I haven’t ovulated since becoming infected and I’m only thirty-eight. Seems Mother Nature made the decision for me.”
Nicole’s statement killed the conversation, which was just fine with me. Yes, this was definitely a topic that needed to be studied so we had a better understanding of what we were dealing with, but I didn’t care to be part of it. I was perfectly content to listen to the results and use the information the best way I could to fight the infected.
We sat in silence for the rest of the flight. Fortunately, it wasn’t too long before we came into a hover over an empty runway at Brigham City’s small airport. Martinez gently brought us down, closely watching a gauge. It registered the weight being supported by the lifting hooks and when it went to zero, she’d know the UTV was resting on the tarmac.
When it displayed 0.0 and turned green, Martinez lifted the protective cover off a switch and thumbed it up. A red light came on as a warning buzzer squawked. With a soft curse, she cycled the switch several times with no better results.
“What’s wrong?”
“Hook’s jammed. Won’t release the load and I can’t land.”
“Just need the straps released, right?” I asked, unbuckling my harness.
“Yeah. What are you doing?”
“Just hold it steady. Saw a fast rope line in the back. I’ll drop down and unhook it manually.”