“I don’t follow. If you don’t need data, why are we here?” He gestured at the project files on the computer screen. “This sure as hell looks like it’s talking about some sort of virus.”
“Rate of initial spread and contagion effects were analogous to a bio-terror attack originating in Brazil — for the first stage. That threw us off, at first. With some variance, the final stage of the ‘outbreak’ — what you call Z-Day —occurred within a sixty-minute window around the world. That’s not how diseases work. They spread geometrically. If this had acted like that, we would have gotten a quicker handle on the response, instituted quarantines instead of trying to fight a thousand brush fires at once. By the time CDC figured it out, it was too late to do anything about it. The people who came up with this thing created the crisis in Brazil, then lobbied to get their vaccine distributed far and wide. But instead of a vaccine, they were spreading a form of the same virus.”
“And the same corporation produced every tainted batch,” Janacek added.
“GenPharm. What the hell . . .” Miles thought back, to the last time he’d walked into the building and to the banner hanging down in the lobby. Every Wednesday during flu season the company offered a free clinic and flu shots. He’d never gotten one, and he hadn’t been here any Wednesdays before Z-Day to get one.
The asshole who’d cut his hours had probably saved his life.
He held back the hysterical bubble of laughter that threatened to break free and instead asked, “All right, so what is it?”
“They’re nanomachines — cybernetic viral organisms. Only partially organic, self-replicating and generally detectable in a blood screen. Significantly larger than an actual virus, but still light years beyond anything any surviving scientist we’ve been able to find can figure out. On Z-Day, someone flipped a switch, and the nanomachines went active as the signal propagated. NSA intercepted the signal, but at the time, they didn’t know what to make of it. It was an ultra-wide bandwidth, low-frequency signal that did one thing — tell all the nanomachines to be fruitful and multiply.” Ross shook his head. “Remember how I told you that all the bunkers staffed to ensure continuity of government got compromised? In the months before Z-Day, there was a government-wide flu shot drive, provided by, you guessed it, GenPharm. That was the first thread that we started pulling at, and it led to, well, here. It was one hell of an effective decapitation strike.”
“Partially organic,” Miles repeated. “Like what, some sort of cyborg nano-virus?” He shook his head and marveled at the nonchalant shrug the SEALs offered. They’d had much more time to digest the implications. He laughed, this time, and didn’t bother to try and keep the shock out of it. “So they’re not zombies at all, they’re . . .” He fell silent and considered whether to say it. “They’re zyborgs.”
Ross rolled his eyes as Miles snickered. “You can understand why the brass prefers infected.”
Miles composed himself and cleared his throat. “Who?” he demanded. “Who in hell would do such a thing? God, man, there were some real assholes working for this company, but not evil. We’re talking true blue psychopath stuff, here.”
Ross shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, now. They thought they got away with it, thought they were safe for the duration. They were planning on waiting until the infection burned out to restart civilization the ‘right way’.”
“Past fucking tense,” Janacek growled. He drew his thumb across his throat.
“So yeah, we aren’t exactly here for vaccine research. But maybe if we can get the data from the sick freaks that designed this to the right people, they can figure out how to stop the infected from passing on their . . . software updates, I suppose.” Ross shrugged. “Humanity is hanging on by a thread, all over the world. If these things start working together, even exhibiting the cunning of a wolf pack, we’re all dead. It’s just a matter of time. There are too many of them and not enough of us.” Ross rubbed his face with one hand. “We thought we had the advantage of time, but we were running out all along and didn’t even know it.”
Chapter 31
Pete pulled open the door to the station’s lone holding cell. It wasn’t much of a prison door, or even a holding cell, for that matter. In the end, he supposed it was the psychology of the thing more than the actual fact of solidity. Rather than going with bars, the team that had put the building together had reinforced a solid oak interior door with two-by-fours on either side. Heavy carriage bolts with the ends ground down and smoothed secured the timbers. Finally, they’d bolted a pair of drop-bar brackets to the reinforcing frame. This allowed the officers to drop a square steel tube to bar the door closed when someone was inside.
Chris Naylor blinked and stared at Pete as he sat up on the cell’s lone cot. The room was empty save for that and a repurposed five-gallon bucket for a toilet. The only light came from a small, non-opening window high on the ceiling.
“Move,” Pete barked. “You’re evicted.”
Naylor stared at him with a dumbfounded look, then said, “What the hell?”
“You heard me, sunshine, hightail it out of here. I got someone a hell of a lot more important than you who needs to be in here. Keep your nose clean, or you and I will have a much more serious chat.”
Naylor didn’t take much in the way of convincing, and he had no personal possessions to collect. He shoved his feet down into his work boots and shot out of the holding cell as though it were on fire. Pete stepped aside just in time to avoid getting run over.
Greg Mills watched the entire process with a bemused smirk. His smile faded when Pete turned back to him and barked, “In you go.”
The other man blanched. “Are you serious? You’re going to lock me up in there and call that safekeeping?”
“This is the best I can do at short notice. You want it, or you want me to cut you loose and see how long it takes for Dantzler to figure out that you ratted him out?”
“All right then,” Greg said, and stepped inside the holding cell. “I do believe I’ll take a nap.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Pete agreed. He closed the door after the younger man, though he didn’t throw the bar across the door. In Greg’s case, his own fear was prison enough. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“What . . . . what is going on?” Jaid Sims demanded. Pete turned and gave the secretary a sidelong glare. He’d never had much personal interaction with her, but the secondhand impression he’d gotten from Miles, Larry, and Tish hadn’t been the greatest. Definitely a cutie, though. His appreciation for his nephew’s common sense rose a notch as he considered the fact that Miles had been brushing Jaid off for years. Maybe I didn’t do such a bad job of child-raising after all.
“Come along, and I’ll fill you in, miss,” Pete replied in an even tone. He stepped over to Larry’s office and regarded the interior with a frown. “This everything?” He waved a hand at the array of weapons that lined the folding table. While he’d been stashing Greg in the holding cell, Charlie and Pete had unloaded the contents of the police station’s single gun safe. It paled in comparison with the arsenal Pete had just stashed in his own house. Going to have to fetch some of that, I suppose. The wall guards were usually the ones packing the heavy firepower; for the most part Miles and his deputies were just there to keep folks honest. He considered the weight of the Russian shotgun Larry had given him. That, at least, was liable to be a difference maker.
Jaid looked at him with incredulous eyes. “Of course, that’s it! What are you even doing in here? You’re not a deputy.” She glanced at Charlie and Vir. “And neither are these two.” Her voice raised in pitch. “And who in the world authorized you to release prisoners?”
“Look, I don’t expect you to be abreast on current events, kid, but Larry’s down for the count and Miles is gone. Am I an official sworn-in deputy? No, of course not. But I’ve been looking out for this place for just as long. Longer than this building has even been standing, in point of fact. We don’t have time for Norma’s little
bureaucratic niceties.”
“Larry’s all right?” The frantic air about her reduced somewhat as she digested that nugget of information that he’d just provided. “That’s . . . that’s great.”
“He’s going to be just fine, and so is Carter. Look, Jaid, like I said, this is time sensitive. So stop giving me static and call the rest of the deputies in, even the ones who are off shift. This is going to be an all hands on deck evolution. And tell them to bring their personal weapons.”
As Jaid stepped over toward the radio, Pete turned back to the table. He picked up a Remington pump shotgun and began to feed shells into the magazine.
“Pete, shouldn’t we bring Gary in on this?” Vir said. “These are his guys, and he’s going to hit the roof if half of what Greg had to say pans out.”
“Nope,” Pete said. He sat the loaded shotgun down on the table and grabbed the next in line. “Is Gary a solid guy? As far as I know, sure. What I don’t know for a fact is how squared-away the guys around him are. We’ve just found out that an entire bunker has gone rogue. You were one of the wall guards, can you tell me for sure that any one of them — except for Gary — is not involved with Dantzler and his crew?”
Vir’s jaw worked as he chewed over the question. “No,” he admitted. “Until an hour ago, I’d have thought Dantzler was straight up, too.”
“Exactly,” Pete said. “I trust you two. I trust the judgment of Miles and Larry, so by extension, I trust the rest of the deputies. That’s as far as it goes. The seven of us will be enough.”
“Enough for what?”
Pete turned. Despite what was an early hour for them, the third shift deputies — John Keogh and Trey Peters — looked wide-awake and raring to go. Of course, both were also holding their personal rifles not-so-subtly in his general direction. He grimaced, and wondered just what it was that Jaid had said over the radio. They’d made good time.
“We’ve got a line on our drug dealers. Your boss is out of town and Larry’s laid up. You interested, or you want to go back to sleep?” He kept his voice calm and made a point to ignore the barrels of the Garand and AR-15 clone they were sweeping him with. On the bright side, they had the guns angled low enough that an accidental discharge would hit him in the prosthetics, if at all.
Keogh and Peters glanced at one another. The former was the older of the two, and generally unknown to Pete. He’d seen him around, of course, but he’d never sat down to have a conversation with the man. He’d been some sort of mid-level manager in one of the nearby factories on Z-Day and was generally a bland, unassuming sort. Miles had never had much to say about him other than that he was dependable.
Trey was a different story. On Z-Day the recently graduated high school senior sought shelter in the break room of the Lowe’s where he’d been working as a cashier. When Pete and the rest of his motley crew had rolled up to clean out the lumber yard they’d rescued Trey in the process. Since then, he’d shown himself to be dependable and hard-working. Which, Pete assumed, was the main reason why Miles had wanted them on third shift. That time of day was usually so quiet that it required a certain type of person who could keep themselves awake and aware. Being a night owl these days wasn’t as common as it used to be when lighting was cheap and easy.
Trey nodded after a moment of consideration. Keogh frowned but took a cue from his younger partner and slung his rifle over one shoulder. “All right, then, what have we got?”
“I’m holding out the big briefing until Brett and Jenny get in,” Pete admitted. “To make a long story short, we’ve got a source who dropped a dime on the source of our drug problem.” He met Keogh’s eyes and watched for the reaction as he said it. Should third shift have noticed something? Pete wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t going to take any chances either. Depending how the man reacted to the information, he might have to draw down on him. Could use you right now, Larry. You were always a damn sight better with a pistol than me, even on my best days.
Keogh smiled. “Well, hot damn. I’m in. Let’s get this mess cleaned up.”
Pete gave him a crooked grin. “Well, all right then. Let’s gear up. We’re rolling out ASAP.”
Redundancy was the name of the game. The full data export was just shy of two terabytes. Ross had brought along dozens of 512GB thumb drives. The SEALs must have stopped at a Best Buy or Staples and stocked up. Whatever the case, Miles made good use of the extras and sorted out a full backup set for each man in the party. He stuffed his clutch of drives into one of the smaller pockets on his pants and Velcroed it shut.
The lieutenant had a bemused look on his face as Miles looped the lanyards together to bundle the drives. “I like the way you think. Two is one, and . . .”
“One is none,” Miles finished, then grinned. “You forget, Marines raised me. Half of my bedtime stories were about logistics.”
“Fair enough,” the lieutenant said. “We done here?”
Miles took a last look around the server room. Part of him ached to bring some of it back home. His pragmatic side noted that everything in this room was a relic of another time and would be of limited utility. Once a computer geek, always a computer geek. If anything, the solar panels on the roof and the battery packs up above would be of more use — if they could find some way to haul them out. He smiled and nodded. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
The climb up and out of the elevator cab was trickier than getting down. After Miles braced his feet on the handrail around the interior, he was able to shove himself up on top. He tried to imagine having to make the same climb under duress, with grasping hands trying to tear you down. The woman who’d died on top of the elevator should have had a chance, somehow. The ladder molded into the side of the elevator shaft ran all the way. Even in the darkness she should have stumbled upon it at some point and found her way up and out. There was no sign that she’d slipped and fallen. Had she just given up? From all appearances, it seemed so. Which led him to consider the family in the farmhouse. In a sense, they’d given up, as well, and it was an action that he could in no way fathom. In all the years since Z-Day, through all the pain and terror, he’d never once considered quitting. There was always a chance, and you never gave up without giving it everything you had.
Charlie Mike, boy. Pete had hammered the sentiment into him from the time he was old enough to get it. Continue Mission.
Trouble grasping algebra? Charlie Mike. Got cut from the basketball team? Charlie Mike. There was a time when Miles thought he hated Pete and had even told him as such. As he grew older and saw how his friends and others of his generation reacted to the slightest hardship, Miles understood the purpose behind the method. His uncle had inculcated in him a resolve that was far beyond that of his contemporaries. Pete had never refused to help, but he’d never let him give up, either. Miles supposed those lessons would have paid off if the world had never changed. But even after the change, those lessons had served him well. Zombies eating the neighbors? Charlie Mike, boy.
At the top, Miles slid through the railing around the elevator shaft. The three SEALs stood in a loose cluster at the top of the shaft. They didn’t acknowledge his presence, which he supposed was a step up from the outright contempt Janacek had started with. Small victories.
Chief Foraker waved his hand at the power array. “What should we do with this, Mikey?”
Ross frowned and rubbed his chin. “On the one hand, I’d say leave it as is with the elevator at the top, just in case. On the other, I know you said that the controls at the top lock it out, Mr. Matthews, but I hate leaving something like that to chance.”
Miles shrugged. “I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an expert. There may well be a console down there that can run the elevator. Why, are you worried about a zombie learning how to punch buttons?” He fell quiet when the other men gave him only grim stares in response. “Right. Bad joke.”
Ross held his thumb and forefinger apart at a distance sufficient to slip one, but not two, sheets of paper between. “So
mewhat funny. Chief, Janacek, pull the plug.”
“Aye aye, sir,”
Ross opened his mouth to say something else but flinched suddenly. He held up a finger to quiet them as he stepped through the double doors onto the roof and then pressed the transmit button on his MBITR. He listened, then cursed with his finger off of the transmit button. He tapped it and said, “Roger that.”
“What’s wrong?” Miles asked. With nothing else to do, he’d followed the other man outside. Nosy? Sure, but it wasn’t like Ross had ordered him to stay put. After the ordeal downstairs, a little sunshine seemed in order, if only to help him forget the oddness of the corner office zombie.
“Chopper just radioed in. Chip light came up on their way here. That’s a sensor that picks up metal shavings in the oil — not a good sign, for obvious reasons. They’re going to have to set down on the other building for a few hours so Castillo can filter the oil and check it. Best case, it’s just a flaky sensor and they can swap it out. If not, we’re grounded. No matter how things work out, we won’t be leaving before dark. In that scenario we’re headed out at first light.” He shrugged. “Worst case, we camp out for a while and hold out for another chopper.”
Miles fingered his pouch full of thumb drives. “At least it happened now, and not on the way home. All things considered, I’m much happier stuck up here than I’d be hoofing it out in the Wild. Any word from Camp Perry?”
“Not at the moment, but I’m not particularly worried. I’m sure they’re just too preoccupied to be reassuring us.” Miles thought he detected a hint of dithering in Ross’ words, which was understandable. How would Miles himself be reacting if he knew that his home was under attack? He doubted it would be anywhere near as well as the SEAL.
Foraker and Janacek stepped out of the elevator shack. The Chief joined their huddle and said, “We’ve got everything rewired and the elevator dropped back down. Chopper on the way?”
A Place Outside The Wild Page 40