J.M. Dillard - War of Worlds: The Resurrection

by J. M. Dillard

  "Got some fresh coffee in the shack," one of them said pleasantly to her, making her realize that the smiles were for her alone.

  Chambers answered before she could. "Maybe later," he said stonily.

  The other corporal took a step nearer. "When did you folks add women to your crews?"

  "Are you threatened by a woman, soldier?" Urick asked. Her voice had a shrill edge to it. Stupid of her to argue. She should have simply killed him.

  "No, ma'am," the questioner answered politely. "I just like 'em, is all."

  Her hand tightened on the Uzi; Lena fled forever, leaving only Urick, and Urick realized with an eerie thrill that she was going to enjoy what she was about to do. She smiled coldly at the soldiers. "What a nice thing to say."

  She drew the Uzi out for them to see and pointed it at the one who offered coffee. The effect on them was gratifying; the corporals gasped in unison and thrust their hands into the air. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Chambers smiled. He was pleased with her performance, then; he was the one who suggested she handle the Uzi—because they'd never expect any trouble from a woman, he'd said, but she knew it was to test her loyalty. There was but one last line to cross.

  "What the hell's going on?" The coffee drinker demanded.

  "Liberation, my friend," Chambers told him.

  One of them moved, Urick didn't know which, but her finger squeezed the trigger without her consciously deciding to do so. Because of the silencer, the burst made very little noise as it tore into Corporal Coffee, lifting him off his feet and knocking him a good yard backward and down. She looked at him lying there, the front of his uniform shredded and blood-soaked, and felt nothing.

  The remaining corporal made a noise something

  like a sob. He raised his hands even higher as he backed away from Urick and the gun. His face contorted. "My God, lady, why—?"

  She raised the Uzi again.

  "Hey, just cool it, okay?" His voice rose to hysterical pitch.

  "It's okay, soldier," she told him calmly, sweetly, and smiled to herself as he relaxed a little. She was aware of Chambers' eyes on her, a little surprised that she was toying with her victim, but she didn't care. "Everything's cool."

  She squeezed the trigger again. The second corporal fell back, his expression startled.

  No time to think now. Only work to be done. Chambers went over to the rig and opened a side panel. He set up the rocket launcher while Urick, the Uzi dancing on a strap slung over one shoulder, ran to the back of the trailer, unlatched the doors, and swung them wide. Inside the trailer, engines revved.

  Joshua in the battle of Jericho . ..

  Exhilaration replaced fear. She had done it—she had killed two men for the good of the revolution, and she had not shrunk from the task. If anything, she had enjoyed it. Urick peered inside the trailer, wanting to share that feeling with her four comrades, but Mossoud, Finney, Teal, and Einhorn were indistinguishable from one another. The visors of their black helmets were already down so that she couldn't catch their eyes. Urick ran to one side, out of the way as the four all-terrain vehicles roared out of the trailer.

  Standing by the side of the truck, Chambers aligned the sights on the launcher and located his target. A compact missile whined through the air; across the yard, the barracks building exploded. Urick covered her head as debris went flying, but she kept moving: what she was looking for would be on the sheltered bulletin board near the guard shack.

  Behind her came the fire of automatic weapons, but she wasn't frightened. The ATVs had machine guns mounted on their handlebars. She found the duty roster neatly stapled in a conspicuous spot on the bulletin board; she tore it off and ran back toward the truck. Something she saw on her way there made her stop.

  Down an aisle created by waste barrels, new ones stacked on top of ancient rusty ones, an ATV rider had been knocked from his vehicle by a soldier armed only with a piece of lumber. Two-by-four raised over his head, the soldier was moving in on the fallen rider to finish the job. If he managed to get to the weapon mounted on the AT

  Urick dropped the roster and began to run toward the ATV, her Uzi at the ready, without even thinking about what would happen if the soldier got there before she was close enough to take aim. She hadn't taken two steps before a second ATV appeared and fired at the soldier.

  The blast slammed him, mouth gaping, back against the barrels; another barrage held him there for an instant before he slid to the ground, leaving a bloody smear on the barrel behind him.

  Good, Urick thought, and realized with a sudden jolt that she was smiling. It had all been so easy . .. too easy. None of it had been real, she decided. The people they had killed were not real people. She turned and picked the roster up out of the dust and brushed it off.

  It was suddenly very quiet on the base; the four ATVs had returned to the truck and shut down their engines. Finney was the first one to take off his helmet, its visor spattered with blood. The others followed suit: Mossoud, tall and swarthy, not to be trusted; Teal, a short, wiry, serious man; Einhorn, with his many-times-broken nose. Finney laughed, running his fingers through his thick blond hair; he was wearing the same strange, slightly hysterical smile Urick knew was on her own lips.

  She had always despised Finney.

  As she approached, Finney was replying to something Chambers had asked.

  "None on our team," he said, still grinning. "But Mossoud got knocked for a loop."

  Mossoud wasn't smiling; his tone was more than a little defensive. "Just havin' me some fun." He rubbed his shoulder and grimaced. "Had that dude in my sights the whole time." Right. Arrogant fool, Mossoud. She knew he didn't believe in the revolution; he and Finney were doing this for the sport of it, and if things didn't work out the way they wanted, they would turn on Chambers in an instant. She'd tried to warn Chambers before about them, but he refused to listen. A pity that honest leaders like Chambers had to recruit such self-serving assholes.

  She stepped up next to Chambers, trying to make her expression more serious, like his. "Duty roster lists seventeen men. One officer"—she held it so he could see it—"four noncoms, twelve enlisted." The officer would have been the one swinging the two-by-four, she decided. He'd worn a lieutenant's gold bar on his collar. The noncoms included the corporals she'd killed.

  Chambers nodded. "Mossoud, Finney." His voice was serious, authoritative enough to make Finney stop gloating and listen. "Do a body count. Make sure there are no stragglers. Teal, Einhorn—set up the perimeter charges."

  The others filed off, and she and Chambers were left alone. She would have liked to talk to him then about the odd metamorphosis she had undergone, how frightened, insecure Lena was gone forever and this strange new cold-blooded person had taken her place, but something about his manner held her back. Instead, she said, "Let's find a good place for the transmitter."

  They were heading for the side panel when the telephone in the guard shack began to ring. She started; Chambers put a hand on her shoulder.

  "Let it ring," he said. "The world's going to hear about us soon enough." And he actually smiled.

  She returned the smile gratefully. And the walls came tumblin' down . . .

  Mossoud looked down at the lieutenant's bullet-ridden body and rubbed his aching shoulder one more time. Serves you right, you son of a bitch, thinking you could take me on!

  He bent down and felt for a wallet in the dead man's back pockets, then the hip pockets, then the pockets on the thighs. No go; maybe he had it in one of his front pockets for some strange reason, in which case any money had been shredded into confetti by the machine-gun blast. He heard the faintest noise, like a hiss: the guy breathing? Nah . . . impossible. Maybe just air seeping out of his perforated lungs.

  He ignored the sound and looked at the guy's wrist. Left one bare .. . Jesus, didn't this guy wear anything where he was supposed to? On the right wrist Mossoud found what he was looking for: a watch with a gold band, eighteen karat at least, with an inscription
on the back. To Jeff, Happy Graduation, Love, Mom and Dad. Mossoud pulled it off the dead man and slipped it onto his wrist. A nice fit. He heard Finney coming and pulled the sleeve of his leather jacket down over his prize.

  "Finney. Give me a hand with this one."

  "You check his pockets?" Finney nudged the stiff with his boot before stooping over to take the guy's legs. Mossoud caught the body under the shoulders.

  "Guy's got nothing worth taking," Mossoud answered innocently, then groaned as they lifted the body up. "Can you believe it? All those goddamn pockets, and not a thing in 'em."

  Neither noticed as, behind them, a thick, caustic liquid hissed through a bullet hole in one of the newer barrels onto an old rusted barrel beneath it. The top of the rusty barrel sizzled as the toxic ooze ate through the metal.

  They were both gone by the time the three probing fingers of the alien's hand burst through.

  TWO

  Suzanne McCullough sat outside Dr. Jacobi's office and glanced impatiently at her watch for the thousandth time in the past twenty minutes. She'd arrived precisely five minutes before the appointed time. Coming any sooner would have revealed how anxious she was; coming any later would have reflected poorly on a newly hired employee. Of course, she'd actually been twenty-five minutes early—it'd taken less time than she expected to get Deb to school—and had wandered around the grounds to kill time. The Pacific Institute of Technology sprawled out over several acres of beautifully landscaped terrain, and at the top of one gently rising hill she'd been able to see the water. In the bright California sunshine, Ohio seemed very, very far away.

  God knows, they were certainly laid back around here. Jacobi was the director, and here he was already ten minutes late. The director of Zubrovski Labs in Canton would never have been late for an appointment. Suzanne sighed and shifted on the too-soft, too-low couch. Even the receptionist was late, shuffling in five minutes before, although she was friendly and kind enough to offer coffee. Suzanne was tempted, but declined. She didn't trust herself not to spill it down the front of her silk blouse before Dr. Jacobi arrived.

  If they had just told her what type of project they'd hired her for... At least then, she wouldn't be nervous and consumed by curiosity.

  It didn't help that Debi had burst out crying at the breakfast table in the morning. Suzanne had been too busy searching for the box boldly labeled: kitchen/ coffeemaker. top priority! to notice the storm clouds gathering. She was now convinced that it was still in the moving van on its way to Oregon, or else sitting forlornly in the empty house back in Canton; after several desperate minutes she realized she had to give it up or be late her first day on the job. She ran her fingers through her long dark hair and sank stiffly into the kitchen chair, trying to remember where the aspirin was packed. A sniffle came from the other end of the table.

  "Deb?" She had to stand to see her; the kitchen table was littered with half-emptied cardboard boxes. Miraculously, Deb had managed to find her clothes and was dressed for her second day of school. "Are you okay?"

  Another sniffle. "Yeah, I'm okay, Mom," Debi said miserably into her cornflakes. "I'm just.. . tired."

  And then the dam broke. Suzanne was just tired and aching enough to join her. Between sobs Deb managed to get it all out. It was her second day of sixth grade at the new school, but she didn't ever want to go back. She didn't like any of the other kids, they all dressed weird, not like home at all, and they thought she was a geek. Nobody would sit with her at lunch... .

  "Honey, did you ask anyone to sit with you?" Stupid question to ask an eleven-year-old girl; she knew it the moment she said it.

  "Mom ... I can't ask anyone I don't know. They're supposed to ask me. .."

  You mustn't be so shy, Suzanne almost said, then bit her tongue. She couldn't blame Deb for taking after her mother (personality-wise, at least. Physically, Deb was the spitting image of Derek). Suzanne could still remember what it felt like; she'd spent junior high with Coke-bottle glasses, a mouthful of braces, and only one close friend, an outsider like herself. "I'm sorry, Deb." She walked over to stand next to the girl, stroked her hair, and felt a pang of guilt. Poor Deb. Today, when she got home from school, the strange new house would be empty because her mother would still be working. "It's no fun starting over; I don't much like having to start a new job myself today. But these kids won't remain strangers forever. Who knows? Maybe you'll make friends with some of them."

  "I doubt it." Debi stared down into her cereal, her long blond hair hanging perilously close to the bowl; a tear dripped into the milk.

  Suzanne knelt down next to her. "I'm not trying to be mean, but you have a choice: you can either sit here and cry about it, or you can tell yourself it's going to get better. To tell you the truth, I'd just as soon cry with you, but I've got to go get dressed for work."

  "I'm sorry, Mom." Deb looked up at her mother; her voice rose tremulously. "I guess I'm just tired, and I sort of. .. miss Dad a little."

  Suzanne gave her a fierce hug and swallowed back tears. She wasn't going to think about Derek now, or she would cry from sheer outrage at the way he treated his only daughter. She had stayed in Ohio for Debi's sake so that the girl could be close to her father . .. but most of the time Derek didn't bother to take advantage of his visitation rights, sometimes even forgot to come pick up Deb on the scheduled weekends. Debi adored him, and when he did show up, with his tall blond good looks, he charmed her into forgetting how he'd hurt her. Just like he did with your mother for all those years... .

  She pushed the thought out of her mind and stood up, feigning cheerfulness. "Now, quit crying into your cornflakes, kid, or they'll get soggy. Eat your breakfast, and when you go to school today, be sure to notice what the kids are wearing. Maybe when I get back from work tonight, we can do a little clothes shopping."

  "All right," Deb said glumly, but her expression said Fat lot of good that'll do. But at least she'd stopped crying and finished her cereal.

  Now, outside Ephram Jacobi's office, Suzanne rose at the sight of the director of the Pacific Institute

  The Resurrection walking toward her. He noticed her, and a smile lit up his lined sun-browned face. Hale-looking and square-shouldered, there was nothing in the way he held himself or moved to indicate his age. He'd worked on the Manhattan Project forty-five years before, when he was a young man; Suzanne calculated that he had to be at least in his early seventies, though he looked more like sixty. Apparently, being director of the Institute for the past twenty years agreed with him; she took it as a hopeful sign.

  As he approached, Suzanne nervously returned his smile.

  "Dr. McCullough." Jacobi adjusted his old-fashioned wire-rimmed glasses as if to see her better, then gripped her hand with strong, bony fingers. "So you're finally here at last. Good. I hope the move wasn't too traumatic." He spoke with the slightest trace of an accent; she tried to identify it and failed.

  "Not too," she said.

  "Please." Jacobi gestured her toward his office. She entered and sat down across from him at his desk, which reminded her very much of her kitchen table back home—full of clutter. How on earth did the man get any work done in such a disorganized environment?

  Jacobi settled himself into an old wooden chair on casters that creaked as he swiveled back and forth ever so slightly in it. Must be as old as he was, Suzanne decided. "It's so very good of you to have accepted our offer," he said.

  Good of her? Suzanne tried not to look skeptical. They'd offered her forty percent more pay than she'd gotten in Ohio, plus all expenses incurred in the move. And suddenly she panicked. Dammit, she knew it was too good to be true. But she'd laid it all out to Jacobi the very first interview. Yes, she'd worked on a secret project in Canton, but it was a joint project with NASA and had nothing whatsoever to do with biological warfare, which she absolutely refused to have anything to do with. And if that was what Jacobi was offering, she'd just leave now, thank you.

  He'd sworn it wasn't. Nothing like that, he'd reas
sured her. After all, hadn't he been one of the scientists on the Manhattan Project who'd later publicly denounced the use of atomic weapons, had demonstrated on the Capitol steps for peace? No, he permitted nothing like that to go on at the Pacific Institute. Not as long as he had a breath of life in him. And he spoke with such conviction that she'd believed him.

  What would she do now if he told her otherwise? Quit immediately, of course . .. But then what would happen to her and Debi? She'd never be able to reimburse them the moving costs, at least not for a while. ...

  That's what you get for behaving impulsively, moving all the way to California without knowing exactly what the job was all about. Sounds more like something Derek would do.

  "Dr. Jacobi," she said slowly, "I am terribly curious as to what the job entails. As I told you, I refuse to engage in any sort of research that could conceivably be used for biowarfare."

  His thin lips curved upward in a smile. "Ah, yes. A scientist of principle. And that's why I hired you, Dr.

  McCullough." He riffled distractedly through a stack of pink While You Were Out memos as he spoke. "But before we discuss details, I would like you to meet the man you'll be working with."

  "Dr. Jacobi—" she began, frustrated. She was going to say, I get a strong impression that you are trying to avoid answering my question . . . until you feel I'm caught too tightly in your web to say no.

  Jacobi held up his hand. "He'll be able to answer all your questions for you. Dr. Harrison Blackwood, the astrophysicist. Perhaps you've heard of him."

  "No," Suzanne answered, calming down a little. An astrophysicist. .. then maybe they hired her because they were interested in space research of the type she'd done at Zubrovski Labs. "But if he can explain, then by all means . .. take me to him."

  Blackwood's office was in a different wing of the building which looked like it had been constructed back in the thirties. The man couldn't be very influential around here, then, if he hadn't managed to get one of the plush new offices near Jacobi's. They stopped in front of a dark wooden door that bore the single inscription Blackwood. The sign looked as old as the rest of the building; then Dr. Blackwood was no doubt as ancient as Jacobi.