Freeman nodded. He asked, “Did they die here?” He looked back at the cadaver, noting the streaks of white in his hair. The dead clone’s face had wrinkles around the eyes and the corners of the mouth.
“Yes they did. It’s the damnedest thing, they all checked in complaining about flu symptoms. I have the same flu they had. If I didn’t know I was natural-born, I’d be really scared about now.”
* * *
Freeman reached the end of the hall and took the stairs up to the lobby. He entered a cavernous floor space swarming with men who stood five-foot-ten and wore their brown hair cropped short. Their coughing swept in waves around the lobby.
Freeman spotted three civilian men scattered among the clones and they spotted him as well.
The clones were all military men. They stood in razor-straight lines and waited their turns. The civilians were not so constrained. Seeing Freeman, one of them spoke into the discreet microphone in his collar. They all turned and started toward him.
Freeman waded through the sea of clones like an icebreaker pushing through thin summer ice. He didn’t pull his gun, and he didn’t worry about the U.A. agents pulling theirs; this was a room filled with soldiers. Sick or healthy, the first man to pull a weapon would be mobbed.
Freeman reached an open elevator before the men who were following him could push through the clones. He stepped in and pressed the button for the twenty-ninth floor.
As the elevator doors closed, he watched the natural-borns and practiced his breathing, slowing his heart rate as he pulled his pistol.
The elevator doors opened on the twenty-ninth.
The hall was crowded with patients, nurses, doctors, medics, and orderlies. Hiding his pistol in his pocket, Freeman pushed past medics and patients on his way to a stairwell at the other end of the hall. From his studies earlier that morning, he knew the location of the stairwell, and the short distance between the door and Watson’s hospital room.
He took the stairs to the thirtieth floor.
A man with a gun stood peering through the door at the top of the stairs. Freeman shot him in the face with his S9. The fléchette-firing stealth gun used electronics instead of combustion, providing nearly silent operation. Freeman shot the man in the face, he fell to the floor, and Freeman pulled him into the stairwell.
The men in the elevator had done exactly what Freeman had hoped they would do; they had attracted attention. Focused on catching Freeman, they had burst out of the elevator, guns raised and ready. Instead of Freeman, they had stumbled into the clones guarding Watson’s floor.
As a former interim president of the Enlisted Man’s Empire, Travis Watson was an important man. Harris had posted bodyguards in Watson’s hospital suite, outside his door, and watching the elevator. As the guards standing outside the room and the ones by the elevator converged on the Unified Authority commandos, Freeman crossed the short space between the stairwell and Watson’s door.
He opened the door and three men pointed M27s at him. Freeman looked beyond the bodyguards into the living room, where Watson sat alone on a couch, his legs stretched straight across the cushions.
Freeman said, “You need to get out of here.”
Watson smiled at Freeman, and shouted, “Hey, M, come on out; Ray’s here.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
Freeman raised his hands in the air and let the bodyguards search him. After finding his S9 pistol and his knife, one of the bodyguards started to radio in for help.
“Wait,” said Watson. “I can vouch for this man. He’s a friend.”
Watson had six guards in his room; all of them had the flu. Some were sicker than others. A few coughed sporadically. One never stopped coughing. In the few minutes that Freeman watched him, he vacillated from hot sweats to cold shivers and back.
Freeman said, “Travis, you and I should have a private word.”
“What about M?” asked Watson. He sat on a couch dressed in loose pants and a tee shirt, looking more sloppy than casual. He had gained back most of the weight he’d lost while on the lam. The new pounds looked soft.
He showed no signs of having a cold.
Emily looked good. Freeman could tell that she’d been exercising and probably eating better than Watson as well. She wore a bright blue dress that fit her perfectly. Like Watson, she showed no signs of illness.
Believing that Emily would take the threat more seriously than Watson, Freeman looked at her and said, “This concerns you as well.”
“We can’t leave,” said one of the bodyguards.
“What?” Watson asked.
“They’re not allowed to let you out of their sight,” said Freeman.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Watson. “Go get a cup of coffee or something.”
The bodyguards didn’t move.
Watson’s hospital room was like a penthouse suite. It had multiple bedrooms, a kitchen, and an office. Freeman pointed to the office, which had window walls, and asked, “How about if we go in there?”
“How do you know this man?” one of the bodyguards asked.
“He’s tight with General Harris,” said Watson. “I’d lay heavy odds that Harris was the one who sent him.”
“Did General Harris send you?” asked the bodyguard.
Freeman shook his head.
“Nice going,” said Watson.
The bodyguard said, “Look, they caught three men with guns coming up the elevators.”
“They were chasing me,” said Freeman.
“See? He came here to save me,” said Watson.
The bodyguards didn’t move.
“Guys, this is Mr. Ray Freeman. He may in fact be the most dangerous psychopath in the universe, but he’s on our side. If he wanted to kill me, he would have blown up the hospital.”
As Watson spoke, Freeman sat on an empty love seat. There were two empty chairs as well, but Freeman was too big to fit in them comfortably, and he’d done enough squeezing into tight spaces the night before.
When the bodyguards still didn’t leave, Watson said, “Go! Scat! Be gone with you!”
More serious and more subdued, Emily said, “Ray has saved our lives on more than one occasion, Lieutenant Marks. We’ll be safe.”
Marks, the highest-ranking bodyguard, glared at Freeman, and said, “You can talk in the office if you need privacy, but we’re not leaving.”
Emily said, “Thank you, Lieutenant.” She led Freeman into the office. Watson followed, shutting the door behind him. He sat on the desk, and asked, “Okay, Ray, what is this about?”
Freeman told them about Howard Tasman’s call and the attack on both his nest and his apartment.
Watson whistled.
Emily asked, “Do you think they can do it? Can they beat the clones?”
Freeman leaned forward and fixed her with a facial expression he hoped would come across as concerned instead of menacing. He said, “They already have.”
Feeling menaced, mistaking Freeman’s glare as a sign that he preferred to speak with Watson, Emily backed away from him.
Freeman asked, “Have you been outside your room?”
Emily didn’t say anything. Watson shook his head. “They won’t let us near the door.”
“So you have no idea what’s happening out there?” Freeman asked.
“What’s happening?” asked Emily.
“This hospital is like an anthill. There are lines of clones in every clinic and more clones lining up outside the doors. I passed the morgue on my way in. There are so many bodies in the basement that they’re stacking them on top of each other.”
Emily put a hand on her chest, and said, “That’s awful!”
“What’s killing them?” asked Watson.
“They have the flu,” said Freeman.
“The flu?” Watson sounded unconvinced.
“All six of our guys have the flu,” said Emily. “Marks and Whiting have bad coughs.”
“All of them are coughing,” said Freeman. “I’v
e been watching them since I came in. They’re all coughing, some more than others.”
“Do you think they have it?” Watson asked. He meant the question more for himself than for Freeman.
“It can’t be that contagious,” Watson said, brightening a bit. “M and I haven’t gotten it.”
Emily, who had some emergency training, asked, “The flu isn’t going to affect us, is it?”
Freeman shook his head.
“Only clones catch it?”
Freeman didn’t answer; it was answer enough.
Emily whispered the word, “Speck.” She looked at Freeman, stared into his dark, wide-spaced eyes. She asked, “Are they all going to catch it?”
Freeman nodded.
Watson was a smart guy, but Emily was more alert and more serious. Freeman preferred speaking with her. He said, “The Unified Authority must have created a virus that only infects clones. From what I can tell, it’s spread everywhere.”
“What about Harris?” asked Watson.
“I haven’t spoken to him,” Freeman admitted. “His DNA is almost identical to every other clone’s. If they caught it, he’ll catch it, too.”
“What do they die from, the fever?” asked Emily.
Freeman said, “The clones in the morgue died from death reflexes.”
“What? How can that . . . That doesn’t make sense,” said Watson. “They only have death reflexes when they find out they’re clones. What are you saying, that the flu makes them realize they’re clones?”
Freeman didn’t answer. He stood staring through the glass at the clones on the other side. The bodyguards returned his stare. The clone Emily had called “Marks” coughed. Unlike the others, who were in their thirties, Marks had touches of white in his hair and eyebrows.
His eyes still on Marks, Freeman said, “The corpses I saw were old by clone standards, men in their fifties.”
“Weakened resistance,” said Emily.
“What?” Watson asked.
“As people grow older, their immune systems become weaker,” said Emily. “Back when they used to have plagues, the babies and old people died first.”
Freeman said, “Maybe it’s not a death reflex that kills them. What if the virus attacks the gland, like a viral key that unlocks the hormone?”
Feeling a wave of panic washing over him, Watson said, “But that can’t happen to all of them; I mean, how many of them have died so far?”
Freeman didn’t answer.
Still struggling, Watson said, “Can it really get all of them? Every single one of them? What about Harris? He doesn’t have the gland.”
“Not Harris,” Freeman agreed. “He doesn’t have a death gland.”
“But it will kill the rest of them,” said Watson, not wanting to believe what he was saying. He turned to look at his bodyguards, and added, “Including them.”
“The Unifieds have commandos scattered throughout the hospital,” said Freeman.
Emily asked, “Is there any way to save them?” At that same moment, Watson asked a more practical question, “What are we going to do?”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
The safest way to exit the building would have been to alert the guards and have them sweep the building of unauthorized natural-borns. By doing that, however, Freeman would have tipped his hand. The U.A. officers in charge would have known he was about to make his move.
Freeman, Watson, and Emily needed to slip out of the building without the commandos spotting them.
At Freeman’s direction, Watson called the hospital’s chief administrator and arranged for a vehicle, clothing, body bags, and a couple of gurneys. Ten minutes later, the administrator delivered the goods.
Freeman explained his idea.
Lieutenant Marks picked up a pair of scrubs, and asked, “Where do I put my gun?”
Freeman said, “You leave it here.”
Marks said, “Then I’m not wearing them. I’m on duty; the gun goes where I go.”
Emily picked up a body bag, and said, “There is no way I’m letting you seal me in this.”
One of the bodyguards coughed, setting off a chain reaction. First he coughed, then three others followed. After watching the clone convulse as he coughed, Watson spread his body bag across the top of one of the gurneys. He opened the flap, and asked, “Don’t these bags freeze whatever’s inside them?”
Freeman opened the second bag, reached an arm into the top lining, and pulled out a chemical stick the size of a marker pen. He said, “Pull this out.” He handed the bag to Emily, who looked at it and shook her head. She said, “I’m not getting in; it’ll give me nightmares for the rest of my life.”
Watson asked, “And how long do you think that will be, M?”
She looked at him, anger and shock showing in her blue eyes.
“You don’t need to do this,” said Marks. “We’ll keep you safe. You’re safer here than you will be on the street.” He coughed a deep, wet series of coughs as he finished the sentence.
Emily said, “Ray, promise me you will pull me out of this bag the moment we’re safe.”
Freeman nodded, though his definition of “safe” didn’t necessarily match hers. Safe, as far as he was concerned, might not happen for an entire day, and he would leave her in the bag as long as he needed.
Marks asked, “Can I hide my gun on the gurney?”
Freeman opened a closet, and said, “Why don’t you leave your guns in here?” He posed it as a question, but it was an order, and Watson repeated it.
He said, “We’re trying to avoid the bad guys, not shoot them. The idea is to get out without letting them know that we’re gone.”
“But what if . . .” asked Marks.
“You’re supposed to be medics. Medics don’t carry the guns,” said Emily. She looked Marks in the eye, and said, “If you want to keep us safe, you need to do what he says.”
Marks and his men grumbled, but they obeyed. They stripped down to their general-issue skivvies and dressed in the loose-fitting scrubs, leaving their guns in the closet along with their uniforms. They sealed Watson and Emily into body bags and loaded them onto the gurneys.
Freeman left the suite first, walking quickly and silently toward the back of the building, where one of the stairwells ran all the way to the basement. He had sixty-six flights of stairs ahead of him, and his leg already hurt. By the time he reached the bottom, he knew he’d be limping.
Dressed in scrubs, Watson’s bodyguards looked like every other cloned hospital worker. They wheeled their gurneys into the hallway and immediately blended in, their anonymity offering better protection than their guns could ever have provided.
They followed Freeman’s trail, pushing the gurneys into the service elevator at the back of the building, the same elevator the workers used for transporting dead patients to the morgue. When the elevator doors opened, the only people on it were clones dressed in Army uniforms, both of whom worked for Marks. They traded places. The clones in scrubs wheeled their gurneys onto the elevator and the ones in uniform locked themselves in Watson’s suite.
Marks pressed the button for the bottom basement, then muttered, “So far so good,” in a voice just loud enough for Watson to hear. Marks and his men rode the elevator down to the basement, then rolled the gurneys to the morgue.
The mortician saw them, and asked, “More bodies?”
Marks said, “These ones are special.”
The mortician asked, “What? Do they do tricks or something? You got stiffs for me, stack ’em over there and clear out.”
Marks said, “My orders are to wait down here.”
“Orders to wait down here,” the mortician repeated, not even attempting to hide his irritation. “Somebody gave you orders to babysit stiffs?”
He nearly didn’t finish the statement as Ray Freeman pushed in through the door. “You again? Is this the man who gave you the orders? Just who the speck are you?”
“We ready to go?” Marks asked, ignori
ng the mortician.
Freeman put up a hand to stop Marks. He went to the mortician, and said, “I have orders to take these bodies to Bethesda for examination.” He handed over a set of papers signed by the hospital administrator.
The mortician snatched the papers and read them carefully. He said, “I still don’t know who you are,” and coughed.
Speaking slowly in his rumbling voice, Freeman said, “I’m the one who’s going to stuff you into a body bag if I hear that you mentioned my visit to anyone, anyone at all. Do you understand me?”
The clone nodded. He understood.
Freeman and the bodyguards rolled the gurneys out of the morgue and into the garage. Per Freeman’s request, an ambulance sat idling. Marks opened the rear door of the ambulance and loaded the gurneys into the back. Freeman climbed behind the wheel. Once Watson and Emily were loaded, Freeman drove out to the street.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
Stolen cars and ambulances attract attention.
On their way back into the city, Freeman found a small medical clinic on De Russey Parkway. They left the ambulance in the clinic parking lot and hiked four blocks east to a storage facility on Langdrum where Freeman kept an impressively nondescript sedan. Then, with Emily in the passenger seat and Watson in the back, Freeman drove the sedan to the Linear Committee Building.
Using Watson’s clearance, they entered the underground parking and took a secured elevator to Howard Tasman’s floor. The three of them had just entered Tasman’s office when Freeman got a phone call. He said, “This call is from Harris.”
“Are you going to tell him we’re here?” asked Watson.
Freeman shook his head. He said, “Harris is going to try to save his empire. He has no choice. Do you know what happens when you swim too close to a drowning man? He pulls you down.
“I’m going to put Harris on my speaker so you can hear him, but he can’t know we’re here in the building. He needs to think you’re still at Walter Reed.”
The Clone Apocalypse Page 22