Claudia sat on the stairs in the subway leading up to the fare gates, arms curled around her bent legs and forehead resting on her knees. The crowd was quiet due to her empathy, but she’d been using her power nonstop since she got boots on the ground. Jamie settled a hand on her shoulder, watching as she turned her head to the side just enough that she could squint one eye up at him.
“The director is sending one of the empaths from the intelligence division out here to relieve you. Soon as he gets to base, Echo will teleport him to Boston. He’s flying in from a joint mission in Japan,” Jamie said.
“Thanks,” Claudia croaked.
Keeping the hundreds of people on the platform, the tracks, and in the damaged subway train calm was hard work. Katie couldn’t help all that much, because her power dealt with thoughts, not emotions. She could uncover the people who were thinking about rushing the police line holding a hard quarantine zone around the station and wipe the thoughts from their minds, but she couldn’t control everyone.
Jamie straightened up and swept his gaze over the platform, taking in the eerie way people milled about. Scattered through the crowd were members of every field team deployed today to deal with the crisis. Their black hard helmets were distinctive in the crowd as they patrolled the area, working to separate everyone into various groups as the onslaught of Splice deterioration worked its way through the civilians in the subway station.
The Splice chemical bombs had been detonated between 1200 and 1300. Jamie didn’t know the exact time because he’d been a little busy telling Declan, and in extension Stanislav, to fuck off. But five hours or so was still long enough for Splice to begin to take its toll on those who were exposed to the deadly chemical.
Many suffered from chemical burns from the three suicide bombers that Declan had remote-detonated on the train. In the rush to escape the blast, they’d surged off the train and onto the platform, the chemical transferring to others during those crazed moments. Already some people were beginning to suffer from organ shutdown while others were starting to lose lucidity to high fevers.
Splice killed within hours through rapid catastrophic cellular collapse, liquefying organs by the end of the death process. It killed 95 percent of those who came into contact with it. The 5 percent of survivors who were turned into a metahuman couldn’t be confirmed until twenty-four hours had passed. Most people were dead by hour twelve, but Splice affected everyone differently. Some took nearly the entire twenty-four hours to die, while others were gone soon after coming into contact with the chemical.
It was a waiting game, one that only metahumans could safely monitor within quarantine zones. Decontamination tents had been set up by the MDF in Boston Common for when the field teams and police finished with their grim task of watching the living die.
Jamie was about to head over to where Kyle was busy checking on the worst off within the damaged subway train with Trevor’s help when someone stepped in his path. The little girl wore a long-sleeved dress, wool tights, and shiny ankle boots. Her brown hair was tied back in two tight braids, red ribbons dangling at the ends. Her eyes were big in her small face, the flush of fever beginning to stain her cheeks. She couldn’t have been much older than five or six, and had probably come into contact with Splice sometime after the initial blasts. Children tended to perish first in situations like this.
“Why can’t we go outside? We’ve been here for hours,” she asked.
Behind the child Jamie could see her mother, hand outstretched toward her daughter, as if to call her back. Then the woman’s face crumpled, shoulders shaking as she covered her mouth with one shaking hand. Unlike her daughter, she knew why they weren’t allowed to leave.
Jamie slowly crouched down so that he could be at eye-level with the little girl, heart clenching at the situation. He knew she didn’t have much time before Splice killed her. The thought of her suffering through that much pain wasn’t something he wanted her to endure. But Federal law stated that anyone who came into contact with Splice couldn’t be killed by a secondary party unless they were trying to escape quarantine.
The US government, like all other governments in the world, didn’t want to lose out on gaining a metahuman.
“I know,” Jamie said, somehow getting the words out through numb lips. “And I’m sorry you’re stuck down here, but so are we.”
“But my tummy hurts and I want to go home!”
The little girl sniffled, rubbing at her nose. Jamie knew it wasn’t the flu making her stomach hurt. Jamie looked over the girl’s head at her mother, who was very quietly sobbing into her hand.
“Please,” the woman said through her tears. “Please, can you…can you make it so she doesn’t hurt? I don’t want my baby to hurt.”
The girl seemed to finally understand that something wasn’t right, and went to turn around. Jamie caught her hand in his, tugging at her a little to keep her from looking behind her as her mother tried to get herself under control.
“Hey, it’s okay. I know someone who can help you feel better,” Jamie said, nearly choking on the lie before he let his thoughts drift. Katie?
I can read your mind, you know, she replied, sounding tired. Yes, I can turn off her mind, but it’s against the law.
I honestly don’t give a fuck about the law right now. If we’re going to lose everyone down here, the least we can do is make it less painful for some of them.
I can’t turn off everyone’s mind. The agents who come in for cleanup will know that Splice didn’t kill them first and that’s an inquiry we don’t need right now. She sighed into his mind, the sound like static between his ears. I can do it for all the children when their symptoms worsen.
They’d miss the chance of knowing if any changed into a metahuman, if any of them could be saved. That acknowledgment settled wordlessly between them, and as much as Jamie wanted to ignore the slim possibility, he knew he couldn’t.
For the children, Jamie echoed.
Tell the mother to hold her.
Jamie cleared his throat and stood up, still holding onto the child’s hand. “Come on, let’s go back to your mom.”
He returned the little girl to her mother, gently guiding them both over to the wall, getting other people there to make room for them. The woman sat down, cradling her daughter in her arms, teeth clenched as she quietly cried.
“Mommy, why are you crying?” the girl asked.
She smoothed a hand over her daughter’s hair, pressing the little girl’s head against her shoulder. “Something in my eye, sweetie. It’s okay. Can you close your eyes for me?”
“But I’m not tired, Mommy!”
“Just…close your eyes, baby.” She pressed her trembling lips to the top of her daughter’s head. “It’s okay, Mommy’s got you.”
Jamie kept his hand on the little girl’s wrist, monitoring her pulse. He felt when it started to slow as Katie did something she’d previously only done in the heat of battle with the backing of command allowing it.
She turned off the little girl’s mind.
The pulse beneath Jamie’s fingers abruptly stopped, the sound of her last breath rattling through her small lungs. The girl’s little body went limp in her mother’s arms. The woman keened out a wordless cry that devolved into harsh sobs as she clutched her dead but no-longer-suffering daughter to her chest.
Jamie let go of the little girl and reached out to touch the woman, but paused with his hand halfway to her shoulder. The woman was too deep in her grief to want comfort, and there was no comfort to be had in a situation like this. Clenching his hand into a fist, Jamie blinked back the wetness in his eyes before getting to his feet.
Long night ahead, Katie said quietly into his mind.
Long night, he agreed, feeling hollowed out and old.
The MDF field teams didn’t leave the Park Street Station until just before dawn on Friday morning, after the last person succumbed to Splice.
There were no survivors.
Jamie went through decontam
ination in a fog, exhausted and numb from the ordeal they had gone through. The emotional toll of watching people die, trapped behind hard containment lines in a quarantine zone, never got any easier to bear. Everyone was silent as medical personnel wearing PPPS gear helped steer them through the process.
Everyone was given new field uniforms to walk out of the decontamination tents in full view of the media’s hovering drone cameras that were relegated to the police line in the distance. Reporters were barred from Boston Common and the surrounding streets, but apparently technology was cleared to operate. Jamie didn’t look at the drone cameras recording their retreat into the X-17 Hermes combat jet that had landed on the dry winter grass in the southeastern corner of the park to take them home.
No one talked on the flight back to base, the grim silence that had shrouded them in the subway following Alpha Team home. Jamie had kept the director and deputy director apprised of the situation throughout the night, but there was no escaping debrief after everything that had happened.
They exited the combat jet on tired feet, slogging their way to the ready room where they racked their weapons. They didn’t bother getting out of their uniforms, since they’d already showered and cleaned up in the field rather than on base.
The other field teams and agents who’d been present in Boston had all returned to D.C. within the last few hours. Debrief was an inescapable task they couldn’t ignore, but Jamie managed to put it off for a few minutes longer once they arrived at the conference room on Level 36.
“I need to call my family,” Jamie said.
Nazari tilted his head in the general direction of an empty office somewhere on the command level. “Take your time.”
Jamie would have done so anyway, with or without permission. He hadn’t spoken with his family since dragging them out of the SUV on the street in Boston and sending them up to the roof of the apartment building for an evac. He needed to get in touch with them, not the least because of the media shitstorm brewing around the tragedy the Boston campaign rally had devolved into.
He found a workroom no one was using, and a terminal that Ceres unlocked for him, logging him in under his code. Sitting down in what felt like the first time in forever, Jamie tipped his head back and closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he held it in his lungs, slowly counting down from the sixty-second mark as he tried to clear his head enough to tackle one more problem. One more mission.
The never-ending cycle of his life.
Jamie synced the bioware in his wrist to the terminal and opened an uplink to his father’s private line. A holoscreen snapped open in front of him, the empty square dark with no image to project.
A click sounded in his ears as the call was picked up, but the holoscreen remained blank. “Jamie.”
Richard’s voice sounded raw, as if he’d been speaking for hours on end with no break. He most likely had, Jamie conceded. As Senate Majority Leader and a presidential candidate caught in the middle of a terrorist attack, Richard couldn’t, in good conscience, remain silent. Jamie just wished his father had stepped out of the spotlight at the beginning, just this once, when they still had a chance to walk away clean. He knew it probably wouldn’t have stopped the Pavluhkins’ plans, but less people may have died.
“Father,” Jamie said.
To his own ears, he sounded tired and worn down, but Jamie didn’t try to hide it. His family knew what he’d gone through yesterday and last night—they’d experienced most of it as well.
“Let me find an uplink.”
Jamie waited a good five minutes before the holoscreen flickered and smoothed out, revealing his father’s face. He looked to be at the Callahans’ D.C. home; Jamie recognized the office. The part of his mind that would never step away from the battlefield was satisfied that his father was somewhere defensible, at least for the moment. Jamie had worked with the MDF on security for every home his family owned and stayed at. The D.C. mansion was as secure as his own condo.
“Where are Mother and Leah?” Jamie asked.
“Asleep. Yesterday was…they needed some rest.”
“How are they?” Jamie paused, studying his father’s tired face and the lines of stress pulling at his mouth that hadn’t been there yesterday. It looked as if he’d aged ten years overnight. “How are you?”
Richard didn’t immediately answer, his blue eyes darting over Jamie’s face. Jamie waited him out. He wasn’t going to make this easy on his father. After everything that happened, a good chunk of the blame rested squarely on Richard’s shoulders. The body count might have been less if the campaign rally hadn’t occurred. Then again, Cillian and Declan may have opted for a rush hour attack, and the results may have been the same. Regardless, the campaign rally had been a target they couldn’t ignore.
So, yes, Jamie blamed his father for what happened. It was uncharitable, but he wasn’t feeling particularly forgiving at the moment. Richard’s hubris had endangered too many lives in favor of political greed. Someone not focused on polling and how well a story of near-assassination played out in the media probably would have gone to ground for a few days, kept their head down, and reassessed the situation. His father had done no such thing. Jamie didn’t think he’d ever forgive him for putting their family through this mess.
Later, maybe, when he’d had a chance to process everything, his opinion might change.
Jamie knew himself well enough to know that wasn’t a likely possibility.
“I’m all right,” Richard finally said. “I’ve been up all night fielding calls from the president and other members of Congress.”
“Not the media?”
Richard’s mouth pressed into a thin line, but Jamie didn’t see any anger in his father’s eyes. More a deep tiredness that would never become guilt. Sorrow, yes, because that played well before the cameras, but guilt was a one-way ticket out of politics. Guilt had no place in Richard’s life or his political plans. In the end, Jamie supposed he would be the one to carry it for his father.
“I’m preparing a statement. I anticipate releasing it sometime today, but the MDF director made it explicitly clear he needed to sign off on it first. The president agreed.”
Jamie knew his father didn’t much care for being told what to do, and there were very few people in the world who could give him orders that he would actually obey. The president of the United States was one of those people.
“We’re starting debrief right now. It’ll be a while before the director contacts you.”
Richard nodded. “Will you be coming to the house afterward?”
The question not phrased as an order made Jamie pause. Part of him wanted to return to his family and check in with them, get eyes on them and see for himself they were doing all right. But he had two team members holed up in Medical, most likely benched from field work for the foreseeable future until they were medically and psychologically cleared by the doctors on base. Jamie couldn’t, in good conscience, walk away.
In the end, it was an easy choice.
“No, I’m staying here,” Jamie said.
He thought his father would protest and argue the many reasons he should be at home with the rest of his family. But Richard surprised him by accepting Jamie’s decision without complaint.
“Thanksgiving is next week. Will you be joining us?” Richard asked instead.
Campaigning around holidays always consisted of mornings spent in soup kitchens passing out food to the less fortunate, toy drives, and an appearance at the interfaith church in Manhattan many New York politicians favored for photo-ops. Jamie wasn’t religious, and neither was his family for the most part, but politics was as much about how a politician was perceived as it was about governing these days. America had a history of being an overtly religious country, and still was to a certain extent. When it suited those in power to be.
Jamie pressed his thumb against his left ring finger, noting the absence of something he had never worn, but wanting it all the same.
“I need to be
available here for the next few weeks. I’ll try for Christmas, Father.”
Richard opened his mouth before closing it again. Eventually, he shook his head, sighing through the motion. “I suppose it’s too much for me to hope you would have come when you made it clear your loyalties lie elsewhere at the moment.”
“Father—” Jamie began, anger a slow burn beneath his skin.
“I didn’t say that to start a fight. It’s simply the truth of the moment.”
Jamie swallowed the argument resting on the tip of his tongue. He wasn’t sure what to make of his father’s attitude, when before, Jamie’s decisions were always cause for a fight.
Richard rubbed tiredly at his face, shoulders slumping in exhaustion. There was no one to see him at less than his best except for Jamie, but if he was hoping to be soothed, he’d answered the wrong call.
“You were right,” Richard said, the words coming out slow and even, almost as if he had practiced them. “I should have canceled the rally.”
Jamie knew there were so many ways he could respond to that confession, so many words crowding his thoughts. But the shape of the syllables felt flat on his tongue, so Jamie didn’t give voice to the bone-deep anger and disgust he’d done a good job of hiding so far.
In the end, all he could think about was that tired little girl, asking why she couldn’t leave, while her mother grieved for her before dying. The way her pulse had beat against his fingers until it didn’t.
Five years old and she never got the chance to grow old.
Jamie cut the uplink.
He closed his eyes and dug the heels of his palms against them, clenching his teeth so hard his jaw clicked at the hinge. He fought back the sting of tears with long practice. When he regained his composure, Jamie initiated an uplink with a number he’d never had to call until now.
Captain Matthew Gailani answered almost immediately, blinking in surprise on the holoscreen. Jamie figured he must have caught the other man at home for him to have access to video so quickly.
“Callahan,” Matthew said, smoothing one hand over the bedhead he was sporting.
In the Blood (Metahuman Files Book 4) Page 27