The Reaper Plague

by David VanDyke

  “Ouch, low blow. I’ll shut up now, Mas-tah Sar-junt.”

  She let him get in the last word, since it was actually a capitulation. Twilight stole over the battalion encampment, and they heard one of the battalion’s two generators rattle to life.

  As a special operator she hated the things. They destroyed the quiet of the night and called attention to their positions. And electricity brought lights, and lights killed night vision. For a unit in the rear, they were necessary. But now they were on the front lines and she really wished they could have done without until the area was secured. Eventually they would be dug in, with earth to muffle the sound somewhat.

  They saw lights come on in the clubhouse building and nowhere else, and blinds drop rapidly down. Well, at least the glare will be confined, once they black everything out. She closed her shooting eye as she nodded at the door guard and led the team inside into the bright. She found Captain LeBrun, who led them to the Battalion Commander.

  She was about to withdraw when LeBrun told her to stay. “Your people will be fine. Remember, you’re covering for your nonexistent LT. That means it’s your job to listen to the intel briefings.”

  She grunted unwilling assent.

  Inside a room crowded with officers and senior NCOs, Swede made his report to LTC Muzik. “We’ve been in the area three days. Do you have a map?” The Battalion intel officer ran to get his easel. “As I understand it you want to work your way northward, start to reestablish law and order, and see how bad DC is. Right now you have two main problems.”

  “We. We have two main problems, Gunnery Sergeant, since your orders are to attach yourself to my battalion.” Muzik’s declaration was confident, his manner easygoing.

  “Uh, yes, sir. We have two main problems. First is the crazies. Packs of them, some of them forty or fifty together. They look like people but they act like apes or something. You can’t tell what they’ll do for sure. Some just run away. Some scare with a few shots. And some attack. We had to kill one group of ten or so that came after us with rocks and sticks.”

  Muzik nodded. “Those must be Twosies. The ones with Demon Plague Two. We should be able to handle them. All of our small arms fire Needleshock, and the Eden Virus should pacify and cure most of them, supplant the Demon Plagues. It remains to be seen what kind of minds they will retain. Oh, and make sure you draw Needleshock for your weapons. You can have your lethal rounds back when you leave my command.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” He looked unhappy at that order. “The other problem is more serious.” Swede stopped, looked around as if not knowing quite how to explain. Finally he said, “It’s Fredericksburg. It’s…hostile.”

  “Explain please.” Muzik’s tone was light but firm.

  “Well, sir…all we know for sure is they have roadblocks and checkpoints, and picket lines and fences, and no one except the crazies –”

  “ – Twosies – ”

  “ – Yes sir, no one except the Twosies live outside of their defense lines. We approached a checkpoint with weapons slung and our hands empty, but they fired on us anyway. We E-and-E’d out of there as quick as we could. Then we reconned most of their lines. We split up and went left and right.”

  “Show us on the map.”

  Swede traced the edges of the Fredericksburg defenses. They ran up the Rappahannock to the East, along Route 3 on the south, and along Interstate 95 to the west. “We didn’t get all the way around, but if they follow the terrain the north end should be about where the river meets the freeway.”

  “Roughly the northern half of Lee’s position on December tenth, 1862,” Muzik mused. “Burnside took a beating. The terrain is very defensible. Five miles between us and them. We have no artillery, no armor, just some air if the Navy can spare some. We’re not a maneuver unit anyway, we’re Civil Affairs. We can’t intimidate them, so we have to find a way to talk. A white flag?”

  “I’ll go, sir,” Repeth volunteered. “They’re more likely to talk to a woman. And I’ll heal in case of trouble.”

  “Ah, sir, my men –” Swede began.

  “Are normals, right? Are you even inoculated with the Plague vaccines?”

  “Yes, sir. They flew some out to the LPD.”

  Muzik grunted. “Then you can back her up. But I mean back. Pick up Plague injectors ASAP, and tomorrow we’ll have a medical team with Eden Plague standing by. This isn’t a battle, Gunnery Sergeant, it’s a parley. We need to know who these people are. What they’re afraid of, what they’re forted up against. They’re our own citizens, people. They’re not the enemy.”

  “Unless they choose to be, sir.” Swede stuck his jaw out. “They did shoot at us.”

  Muzik’s Adonis smile broke out wintry. “Understood. But let me say again, and very clearly, Gunny,” as his eyes bore into Gunderson’s, “these are Americans, no matter how misguided. We’re not looking for a fight.” He raised his voice. “All right, everyone back to work. Make sure your people get some sleep. We initiate the parley at 0700 tomorrow.”

  -22-

  Skull stared at the base again on the viewscreen. “It doesn’t look like much.”

  “There isn’t much to see. What you’d call the roof is just a solar collection surface, everything else is underneath. But now you at least know I’m telling you the truth about a base.”

  “It’s a base, yes. I still want to see it. At least to get out of this ship for a while. See something except these two rooms. I’ll be the only human ever to have set foot on a comet.”

  She looked at him with pain in her eyes.

  He stared back. “What?”

  She shook her head, mumbled something again.

  “What did you say?”

  She pressed her lips together, looked down, shook her head. Tears spattered with the motion.

  “Gah. Women.”

  She raised her head, suddenly furious. “Which is it? I’m a woman, or I’m an alien? One minute you’re screwing me and then the next minute you’re declaring you’re the only human on this ship. Which is it?” She picked up her empty bottle and threw it at his head.

  He caught it with casual speed. “Come on, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, the only full human…unchanged human…huh. I’m not even that, am I?” he mused. “I guess you’re right to be upset. Neither of us is human anymore.”

  “Yes we are! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all this time. Being human isn’t about your biology, it’s your mind and your soul that makes you human.”

  “But what about your Meme mind and soul?” he asked, half-serious.

  “That’s why they wipe the minds of the species they blend with. Meme have very little personality, and no soul. They have no art, no music, no appreciation for beauty. Their emotions are weak compared to ours. They are just big bags of knowledge and memories. And Raphael never met any Meme except his siblings. He was terrified of the ones that are coming, and fascinated by humanity.” She slapped her chest with her palm. “My personality is mostly Sophia Ilona’s, even if my memories include Raphael’s. My brain and body are human, deliberately human. As much or more than yours. If you can’t get past your gut revulsion to me, I understand. But if it’s just a mental reservation, then for God’s sake get over it. And if by chance you’re beating yourself up about what you…what we did, then get over that too. I don’t blame you for it. It just…happened. And,” she dropped her voice near to a whisper, “I really wouldn’t mind it happening again.”

  Skull turned away as if he had not heard, ignoring the invitation, rejecting the complexity of this thing between them, this relationship that was growing like crabgrass despite his efforts to pull up the roots or mow it down.

  After a moment he heard her weeping. More manipulation. Not giving in. He clenched his teeth and said harshly, “How long until we land?”

  Between sniffles she said, “Six hours. You’ll feel the G forces lessen and eventually almost disappear. When we set down we’ll have microgravity. Treat it like zero G and you�
�ll be fine.”

  -23-

  “Swede. You sure you don’t want me to bite you?” Repeth raised and lowered her eyebrows a couple of times, mocking.

  “I’ve never answered ‘no’ to that question until now. Especially not coming from a beautiful woman.” Swede turned his rock-jawed head and spat a stream of dip juice, then looked back, eyes narrowed, at the checkpoint two hundred meters away across the open field. They stood well within the trees, unseen.

  “Oh, suh, You’ll turn mah head. The spitting is especially attractive. But seriously. Why not?”

  “I don’t really want my balls cut off. So to speak.” He spat again.

  “Just wait till your lip falls off from that stuff. You’ll beg for the Eden Plague. Besides, I got enough balls for both of us.” Repeth took off her cap, folded it carefully and slid it into her cargo pocket, then pulled the pins out of her hair. She shook her shoulder-length mane loose, a rich crown of brown matching her eyes and well-tanned skin. Then she unbuttoned her tunic and rolled that up, tucking it into her small field pack. She seated the straps on her shoulders, smoothing out her t-shirt and jutting her small breasts well forward.

  “I like the look,” Swede said, eyeing her appreciatively.

  “Enjoy it while you can. It’s not for you. I don’t want them thinking I have pects instead of boobs.”

  “You do have pects. I saw you doing those push-ups.” He whistled. “You’re one hell of an athlete.”

  “Save it. And you’re never getting in my pants, so stop wasting your energy with the compliments.”

  “Why, you a rug-muncher?”

  “Nope. But I am engaged. And an Eden, remember?”

  He sighed. “Damn. All the good ones are taken. Or infected.”

  “Or maybe all the infected ones are good. But don’t believe everything the Unies told you about us. We’re not mindless drones or angels, just an itty lil’ bit new and improved. You could do worse.” She took a deep breath, let it out. “Now you ready to do this?”

  “Yeah. But I still think it’s a bad idea.” He scooped the dip out of his mouth and she caught another whiff of wintergreen as he flicked it onto the ground. He waved his team into prone positions and they low-crawled up to the edge of the slight hill overlooking the field. In their Ghillie suits they were just about invisible.

  Repeth picked up the stick with the piece of white cloth attached, a banner she’d prepared back at the airfield. She looked back at the two Humvees that had brought them out, and at the team of medics standing near them. Captain LeBrun, perched on the hood of one of the vehicles, gave her the thumbs-up.

  She turned to trudge down the road, a two-lane strip already going to ruin. Tree branches and fallen trunks, animal carcasses and bones, a wash of alluvial sand from a flash flood – ten weeks of neglect and already the works of man were blurring, fading. She held the white flag high.

  Halfway there, a hundred yards from the barricade made of a couple of dozen vehicles with an abatis of salvaged materials, the sentries noticed her. Pretty bad security, to let me walk so far up to them without even seeing me in the middle of the road. She raised the white flag, swung it back and forth. She felt exposed, and waited for a shot that didn’t come.

  As she trudged deliberately forward, a figure – a man – stood up, holding a rifle. He didn’t point it, just braced it on his hip and waited. As she got nearer she saw that he was mostly hairless. Closer, and he seemed disfigured, scarred and burned. Ten yards away he dropped the rifle barrel to point at her.

  “That’s fur enough. Who are you and what ya want?”

  There was something funny about the way he talked, she thought. He had something in his cheek, probably tobacco, but it was more than that. Radiation? Or Demon Plague One? “Did you get sick?” she asked loudly. “Right after the bombs fell?”

  “Yeah. Ever’body got sick. Radiation or sumpin. Though Doc Jones said it was a mutated flu. He said you cain’t catch radiation.” The man smiled, revealing jagged teeth she could count on one hand. His eyes were beady, feral. He gestured with the rifle. “Now shut up and answer me.”

  She nodded. “I’m Master Sergeant Jill Repeth, United States Marine Corps. I’m part of a US military unit that has reoccupied Fort AP Hill,” she said, stretching the truth a bit. “The United States Government is back to help.”

  “Riiiillly.” He made chewing motions, then spat black juice. “They ain’t no more US gub’mint. I been up to the dead zone. Ain’t no more White House, ain’t no more Congress. Ain’t no more Pentagon. Ain’t many of you damnyankees left neither as far as I can tell. But what there is,” he said, “is the Confederate Republic of Fredericksburg, and y’all now a part of it. We could use a pretty white breeder like you. Tommy-boy, open the small gate!” A man-sized gap appeared to the left of the barrier as his men pulled a piece of fencing backward.

  Shit. Time to go. Without preamble or warning Repeth dropped the banner and bolted to her right, away from the gate, to sprint serpentine across the open field. There was a draw with some bushes that meandered back toward the Recon team’s position. If she could make it there she could easily evade to them.

  Rifles cracked behind her and she felt bullets pass uncomfortably close. One kissed her thigh, stinging. She could see muzzle flashes as Swede and the rest opened up, giving her covering fire, but she focused on running and not falling on the broken ground.

  Someone stuck a hot poker into her back, searing agony that cut the strings in her legs. She felt herself collapse in mid-stride, a discarded rag doll. This is not good was all she had time to think before the darkness took her.

  -24-

  The shuttle touched down like a feather in the comet’s microgravity. Skull felt a prolonged grinding then a slight bump, and they were still. Raphaela touched her control screens, and slight jerks and shudders went through the ship.

  A sense of disorientation swept over him as he abruptly felt himself hanging from the ceiling, yet he hadn’t moved. He clamped his hands on the seat, and watched a water bottle fall upward – downward – no, the viewscreen showed they were settled bottom-down on the surface. Yet his body wanted to fall to the ceiling, very slowly.

  “It’s the comet’s rotation,” she said. “After the asteroid struck it set it spinning. The centrifugal force exerts slightly more outward pressure than its gravity pulls inward. If we weren’t clamped down we’d just fly off.”

  “How could you operate here?”

  “My siblings and I reconfigured everything we could once we became sentient. We made the ceiling the floor. I could do it for the ship if I wanted to but it’s not worth the time and energy. Just flip over and stand on the ceiling. We’ll float anyway.”

  It was true. The tiniest push from the floor sent him flying. He fought down nausea and tried to treat it as weightlessness. “Let’s go,” he said roughly.

  “Through there.” She pointed at an opening behind him.

  He glanced down at the rifle bolt that he’d never retrieved from its decorative position on the ceiling-now-floor, then shrugged. He was still in her hands, and he just couldn’t believe everything he’d seen was some kind of an act to lull him into complacency. He floated through.

  Faint lights came on and showed a tunnel leading upward, into the surface of the topsy-turvy comet. He used his fingers and toes to propel himself through it, Raphaela following behind. A short distance, perhaps twenty yards, and he entered the base.

  Disappointment shot through him. He thought it would be grand, a place of wonder, rooms full of throbbing machines of power or incomprehensible objects. Instead, it looked rather like a large version of the shuttle interior. In fact it was rather bare. The only significant objects he could see were a teacup Meme-chair and a control console with several of the hemispherical screens.

  “Where is everything? This can’t be it!”

  “It’s all put away. The base is just like the shuttle. It’s one big biomachine, infinitely configurable, if you have ma
ss and energy. The computers, the data storage, the physical storage, the fuel cells, everything is either inside the base’s structure or it’s just waiting, a potential pattern until I call it into being.”

  Skull turned around, looking at everything as if the answer – no, the question – would jump out at him and then he would know what to do. I got this far, now what? I can see the end of the thing, more or less, but I can’t see from now through the middle part. Reluctantly he decided to confide in Raphaela.

  “When they get here I want to ambush them. For that I’m going to need your help. Let’s find someplace comfortable and do some brainstorming.”

  “Are we in a hurry? We have almost a year. Six months at the absolute minimum, and that’s only if they burn their ship like a candle. We’re here now. Let’s make this place livable. I’m tired of that biomass I made to eat. The base can do a lot more for us.” She ran her fingers along a wall, and it split where she touched, forming a long slim countertop.

  “I thought you said this place is breaking down. Falling apart.”

  She smiled, shook her head. “Sorry, I was speaking by Meme standards. It won’t last another hundred years. But it should easily last one.” She walked over to grasp the teacup, which slowly morphed into a human-usable chair. She touched screens and controls, which came to life with dim light. “I have a lot of improvements to make. Hours at least, if you want a functioning bathroom and kitchen.”

  “Why don’t you let me help?”

  Amusement flitted across her face, banished immediately by her fear of showing him disrespect. Carefully neutral, she asked, “What can you do?”

  He stood next to her, staring at the console. “I may not be able to make anything but I can control things. So first set me up something that will give me a task. For example, make a big screen like you did in the shuttle and connect it to the biggest telescope you have, something I can aim. Then I’ll start looking around.”