Anarchy

by Peter Meredith

Maddy decided she did not like Mordel. With a hardness to her silver eyes, she stood. He flinched from the look and started his sideways walk once more, nearly running into a tree in the process. Maddy walked right at him and grabbed his arm before he could duck around the trunk. “Why don’t you tell us exactly what’s going on before I get angry.”

  She topped him by nearly three inches, and her hold on his arm was going to leave bruises. He tried to pull himself from her grip but she only clamped down harder.

  “Fine. If you must know, and I suppose you should since it is your job to stop them, the President has ordered a launch.” Her entire body went numb and that included her hand. Mordel shook himself free. “Now you understand,” he said.

  How soon before they’re in the air,” Bryce asked.

  “They launched ten minutes ago,” Mordel answered.

  Chapter 45

  “Ten minutes ago?” Bryce choked. “How long do we have?”

  Mordel had asked the same question, ten minutes before, when he had heard the news. The answer had been a shock. He had figured an hour or maybe two. After a quick check of his watch, he said, “About fifteen minutes at the most. So, if you two will pick up the pace.”

  They didn’t just pick up the pace, they marched along so quickly that Mordel had to jog to keep up. As they walked, Bryce ran over the points he wished to make in his mind. The President had always tried to come across as “Mr. Compassionate” and Bryce figured he would work that angle, using the man’s sometimes feminine emotions to undermine whatever garbage had been fed to him by the stern-faced warmongering military types whom Bryce figured he had surrounded himself with.

  The three were met by an older black woman wearing a blue pant suit topped by a camouflage coat. Despite her long wig being askew and her makeup having been applied by the light of a single flashlight that she had kept clenched under one arm, Bryce recognized her as Lenore Mapes, the Secretary of Homeland Security. “We have to hurry,” she stated, catching Mordel’s eye. The darkness did not hide the conspiratorial look from Bryce and Maddy. She too was on Magnus’ payroll.

  Bryce guessed there would be others, something that was somewhat comforting. Magnus always had back up plans for his back-up plans. Not everything would be on his shoulders.

  Without a sideways glance at the soldiers, Mapes marched them through one check point. At the next one they were stopped, and she had to fish out her ID. Lights were shone into their faces and someone snorted, “Nice PJs,” to Bryce.

  This elicited only a grunt from Bryce. His mind was on his coming interview with the President, and he was only dimly aware of the hands patting him down for weapons. It was a foolish gesture. Bryce was now so fast and strong that he could kill the President with a single blow.

  Then they were through the checkpoint and standing in front of a long green metal rectangle set on wheels—the military’s version of an RV. Instead of windows there were cameras at every corner; on the roof a forest of antennas jutted up. The door was a sheet of solid steel without handle or knob. Mapes knocked with the heel of her hand making a soft thumping sound that couldn’t possibly be heard from the inside and yet the door swung in.

  Having watched every war movie made after 1970, Bryce expected the interior to be drab and industrial. He also thought it would be dim, lit only by subdued green lights. Instead, warm yellow light flowed over him, and in its glow, he saw white walls, rich hardwood floors, dark leather chairs and shining brass. He was looking at a small sitting room. The outward aroma was vanilla, however beneath that was an oppressive stench of fear.

  Unlike the young soldiers surrounding the area, who were unblooded and had yet to face a true zombie horde and thus were still confident in their immortality, the people inside the vehicle were making life and death decisions and fretted over every one. This fear had been the real reason the President had taken so long to launch his nukes.

  A sculpted woman in a tailored blue tactical uniform that clung to her every curve stood in the doorway. She was a black-haired beauty that was used to having people stare unabashedly at her. Now, she was the one staring. Bryce’s brilliant blue eyes held her transfixed. “We’re here to see the President,” he said.

  She nodded, her mouth hanging open, and it took an act of will for her to break eye contact. Only then could she blink and, remembering her role, said, “He’s expecting you. Please have a seat.”

  Maddy and Bryce sat. Mapes and Mordel did not. They hovered, their anxiety stretching into fear. The chairs were deep and comfortable. A crumb on one set Bryce’s stomach rumbling. “Is there any chance I could get a sandwich?” he asked the woman, making a big C out of one hand. “Like this big. I’m starving.”

  “There are more important things to worry about than a damned sandwich,” Mapes said, her lips turning down making her look like a fish wearing makeup and an off-kilter wig.

  “Worrying won’t help us,” Bryce said. “Maybe a sandwich won’t either, but I’m willing to risk it. Plenty of mayo on it if you don’t mind,” he said to the woman.

  She left through a fine door made of stout oak planks and hidden reinforced steel. Sadly, she wasn’t gone long enough to make a sandwich, at least not a proper one, before long she returned and announced, “The President.” Behind the beauty came two hulking bodyguards, each as tall as Bryce and much thicker through the shoulders. They fairly reeked of steroids.

  The two eclipsed a withered septuagenarian who bore only a passing resemblance to the silver-haired politician whose grinning face had been everywhere only the year before during the election. Gone was the tan and the lively grin. Presently, his color was that of an old pillowcase and his eyes were both rheumy and bloodshot. For all his rather soft life the President had been a firm believer in getting a solid nine hours of sleep a night. Over the last week, he’d been averaging four.

  “Magnus sent you,” he stated, his voice dry and raspy.

  “Yes and no,” Bryce answered, standing and holding out a large hand, which was purposely ignored by the President. Bryce let his hand drop. “My name is Dr. Bryce Carter, and this is Dr. Madison Whitmore. We’re microbiologists by trade.”

  The President sniffed, “In those get ups, you look like pro-wrestlers. Of course, it wouldn’t matter if you were in a proper suit, the missiles are in the air. We have to contain this plague and we have to do it as soon as humanly possible.”

  Then why did you wait so long to fire them? Bryce wanted to ask. Instead, he broke out his most charming smile. “There are other ways of containing the spread of the contagion. Your military advisors may not have all the answers. Magnus has a cure. That’s what we’re here to tell you.”

  “What military advisors?” the President snorted. “I sent them packing right off the bat. The last thing you want in an emergency like this is a bunch of generals bickering back and forth. I make the decisions around here, and I make them in full knowledge of the facts. Trust me, I know all about Magnus and his so-called cure. Just like I know all about you and Dr. Fuck-more over there. I know what you two are.”

  A spasm of disgust passed over his tired features. “You two are just like the rest of his creations. You might be prettier than the rest but you’re still abominations.”

  So much for Mr. Compassionate, Bryce thought. That side of the President was clearly just for the cameras. “This isn’t about Magnus,” Bryce said, retaining his cool with an effort. “This is about a cure.”

  The President rolled his eyes. “You are a fool. Magnus started this, why would he suddenly want to save us all with a cure? No, he doesn’t have a cure but let’s pretend that he does, how many doses do you honestly believe he has on hand? Hmm?”

  Bryce shared a look with Maddy before answering, “I don’t know.”

  “Well, isn’t that special.” The President’s sneer deepened. “Let me give you some facts. He had twenty-one laboratories scattered about the globe, none of which were working on mass-producing any sort of cure for anything. If he had, w
e would’ve known.”

  Maddy drummed her fingers, glaring at the man in a way that spelled trouble. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, practically spitting out the word sir as if it tasted rancid in her mouth. “With the infrastructure in place and full knowledge of the DNA strain, twenty-one labs could churn out millions of doses in no time at all. I don’t understand why you’re being such a…”

  Before she could finish her sentence, Bryce squeezed her hand. “Being so obstinate,” he said for her.

  “Because I have the facts and you don’t. He has a lab in Patterson, New Jersey; maybe you should go see how that one is running.” Patterson was ten miles outside New York and teemed with the dead by the tens of thousands. “Or what about his lab in Orange County?” He turned to one of his beefy bodyguards and asked, “Wasn’t half that county on fire the last time we checked?”

  The man didn’t take his cold, flat eyes from Bryce as he answered, “It was half the state, Sir.”

  “That’s right, it was. Still is, really. Those Californians know how to do fires right. Always have.” For some reason, the old man grinned at this, showing strangely white and perfectly straight teeth. They were far from natural, as was the grin itself. A politician’s smile was the closest thing to a pure lie in the human world, and both Bryce and Maddy recoiled from it.

  “Do we even need to talk about his other labs?” the President went on. “You two seem pretty dim so I think so. Presently, every one of his twenty-one labs are abandoned. So, tell me, Doctors, how is the great and powerful Daniel Magnus supposed to make this cure?”

  Bryce sucked in a breath, presumably to answer only he didn’t have an answer. There wasn’t a laboratory in the world that was currently running. And if one could be staffed and defended, how long would it take to churn out three hundred million doses? Maddy had said “in no time” but that was only true from a research position. Creating the same number of doses for the Covid Virus had taken eight months and that was in near perfect conditions, and even that had been considered lightspeed in the pharmacological world.

  If it could be done in a month it would be a miracle, but what would the country look like in a month?

  And what about distribution? The thought popped into his head. Just getting the cure to the people would take weeks if not months in itself.

  A dark cloud suddenly settled over Bryce. Something wasn’t right. Magnus would’ve known all this from the start. It was obvious and would’ve been obvious to Bryce sooner if he’d been given a moment to think of anything beyond surviving the next minute. This isn’t about a cure, he suddenly realized. It’s about Magnus saving himself. Deflated, Bryce leaned back in the chair and glanced over at Maddy, who had just come to the same conclusion.

  The look brought out a wicked grin from the President. “Ah, you’re seeing it now. This was always about him. It’s always been about what he wants. Well, sad to say, this time he’s not getting his way. The right thing to do is to nip this in the bud. We cauterize the wound so to speak.”

  “There are still millions of people in the city,” Maddy said, regaining a touch of color in her cheeks.

  “Who are all doomed no matter what,” the president said, his rheumy eyes turning flinty. “I have an entire country to worry about. The needs of three hundred million outweigh the needs of three million. It’s pretty simple really. Even a pair of eggheads should be able to figure it out.”

  The insult focused Maddy, whose head had been in something of a whirl. She glared hard at the old man with her jaw set as she tried to pierce his mind. He was not being entirely truthful; that was obvious. He had left something out, something big. When it didn’t come to her immediately, she looked into the future and saw only the light which was now hotter than ever. It was fuller as well, as if the light was coming from all around her.

  “It’s not just New York, is it? You’re going to nuke other cities.”

  “I’m going to do what I have to.”

  Bryce saw that there was no changing his mind and there never had been. He was very tempted to use the power of his voice to try to force the President into stopping the nukes, only he had to agree with the man’s position. It was similar to a doctor amputating a gangrenous limb to save someone’s life. As a scientist, he found it easier to walk the see-saw of moral implications than a normal person might…again something Magnus should’ve known.

  He drummed his fingers on the chair’s armrest. “Magnus doesn’t make mistakes,” he stated aloud, though he was really just talking to himself.

  “He did this time,” the President responded, smugly.

  “And then kept making the same mistake?” Bryce replied. “He put a lot of time and energy into getting Maddy and me here. In front of you.”

  “Does he think you will kill me?” the President asked, apparently unconcerned. His bodyguards were more so and each slid their right hands up to the first button of their suit coats in what looked like a synchronized move.

  Bryce was too preoccupied to notice the guards. “I don’t know why he would. It’s not like we owe him anything. He did this,” he gestured to his face, “against our will and although it seems like a good thing, there’s no telling what the long-term implications will be.”

  “There are no long-term implications,” Maddy interjected. She had been staring into nothing, literally as well as figuratively. The thought occurred to her that she hadn’t explored the extent of the white light; how long it would last and what the world would look like afterwards. She had seen nothing, not even darkness. It wasn’t the world that would cease to exist. “We’re going to die. I don’t think the nukes are going to New York. They’re coming here.”

  Chapter 46

  As cold silence filled the little room, the flesh on Bryce’s arms broke out in goosebumps. “How long do we have?” he asked, getting to his feet. He did not doubt Maddy for a second. In fact, things were finally starting to make sense. It was just dawning on him that they really were there to kill the President. That had been Magnus’ real goal for them all along. Somehow Magnus was tracking them and had been from the very start.

  Time and again, his agents, both human and extra-human had always managed to find them in the middle of a huge city; a city without cameras or even electricity; a city where people running and fighting for their lives was common. Bryce had assumed Magnus was using someone with heightened powers, someone who could cut through the clutter and zero in on them. Now, he had to wonder if Magnus had resorted to something much more mundane.

  I’ve been chipped, he realized. Somewhere inside him was a homing beacon. It had to have been done right off the bat when he and Maddy had been unconscious following their injections. He had been in so much pain that a small incision, perhaps on his scalp would’ve been overlooked. Despite the looming danger, he felt more disgust than fear.

  Maddy’s gaze was slightly out of focus and in something akin to a trance, she droned, “Nine minutes.”

  “Is that true?” the President asked, speaking to the ceiling.

  The door behind the President burst open and a strange humanoid creature stormed violently into the room, lurching from side to side as if drunk. It was both tall and stunted simultaneously. The left side of its body was huge and long, and if it would’ve stood straight on its left leg, it would’ve been eight feet tall. Its right side was tiny in comparison and it stood in a hunched, crumpled sort of lean, with the knuckles of its left hand dragging on the floor.

  Its face was just as misshapen, and even after a second look—more of a gape, as if Bryce had laid his nickel down to see the circus freak—he could not ascertain its sex. Its nametag read “Cecil Smits.” Presumably this made it a male.

  When Cecil spoke, it was in a shrieking wet lisp. “Shhheee’s not lyinnnng-ga!”

  Bryce’s immediate thought was that the thing was one of Magnus’ warped creatures; however, he had a different scent to him, one that was iron and chlorine. Cecil also gave off something ineffable and foreign that g
rated on Bryce’s nerves. This was the government’s version of the Chosen and he clearly had enhanced abilities.

  The President made a split-second decision and barged past Bryce, who was wondering if the grotesque man had been reading their thoughts through the wall, something that had unnerving potential.

  “Get me to the helicopter!” the president barked, flinging open the door and charging out into the darkness.

  In a mad rush, everyone in the trailer pushed to join him and that included his two guards who were as surprised as Bryce at how spry the old man was. “We’re coming, too!” Bryce said, speaking loudly and forcibly. The nearest guard started nodding and the other seemed stunned by Bryce’s power.

  “He-sh u-sh-ing hish abilit-eesh!” Cecil cried, spraying the back of Maddy’s head with saliva. In his excitement and with his labored breathing, which was hoarse and wet, no one understood a word the man was saying. Bryce caught the gist, however. Cecil started to say again, “I shed, he-sh…” Bryce seemed to stumble and when he straightened, there was a blur of blue in a dark background and in mid-sentence, air blasted from the Cecil’s lungs. Bryce had struck him with pinpoint precision right in the diaphragm.

  In the chaos, no one noticed. There were more people in the trailer than Bryce could have guessed and now there was a stampede for the helicopters that sat cold and dark around the perimeter. More guards—Secret Service Agents, Bryce figured—suddenly appeared all around them. They formed a bubble around the President and rushed him to the nearest helicopter which happened to be the one that had transported Bryce and Maddy from New York.

  Secretary Mapes jostled her way to it as well, screaming her credentials. Mordel tried to make a case for himself only to be pushed back into the crowd. A beefy, pale-faced guard in a black suit tried to hold Bryce back. Bryce snagged his eyes with his own, staring deep. “We’re with the President,” he said, pushing hard with his mind.

  “Yeah,” the man replied, uncertainly.