by Jeff Carlson
He wondered again if he should have brought her out of Leadville. Would she have come if he asked?
“Stop,” he said, reaching for Gilbride’s shoulder. They were halfway to the command shelter, alone in the slanting ‚eld. Hernandez saw no one else except a lone sentry at the edge of Bunker 7. “I get it,” he said. “There was somebody in 5 they didn’t want me to see.”
Gilbride shook his head and gestured for him to follow.
“No,” Hernandez said. “I have to make at least one more run for more rock.”
“Please, sir.” Gilbride’s voice was rough and wet. His sinus tissues had reacted to the desiccated air by generating mucus, which was choking him.
That wasn’t what made Hernandez search his friend’s eyes. Sir. The formality was unlike Gilbride. He knew it wasn’t necessary when they were alone. Nathan Gilbride was one of the four Marines who’d †own into Sacramento with Hernandez, and even before then Gilbride had earned every privilege. They’d been together through the entire plague year. The guilt that Hernandez felt went deep, shot through with anger and more. Gilbride didn’t deserve to be out here, but Hernandez was glad to have him, which made him feel guilty in a different way. He trusted Gilbride even if the leadership in Leadville did not. He knew Gilbride was a good barometer of how the troops were doing, and Gilbride was nervous.
“You’re no good to us if you’re exhausted,” Gilbride said reasonably. “Come on. Take a break.”
Hernandez knew better than to ignore him, but he dug into a jacket pocket to check his watch. 1:21. It was early to quit for the day, and if he did, he’d have to get a runner out to tell everybody to stop. And then tomorrow’s shift had better be short, too, or people would bitch, which meant he’d lose two afternoons’ worth of work. Damn. “All right,” he said. “But then we need to pull everyone in.”
“Not a problem,” Gilbride said.
The command bunker was no different than the rest. It was simply a trench with two tents stitched together, surrounded by rock. They hadn’t been given lumber or steel. There had been an impossible amount of stuff to drag up the mountain anyway, so the bunkers had no roofs. That made them more vulnerable to rockets and guns — and snow. At this altitude, it wasn’t uncommon to see storms at any time of the year.
There was one bene‚t to the cold. As they laid down their rock walls, they shoveled dirt into the gaps and then poured urine on it. The freezing liquid cemented earth and stone together. Drinking water was too precious, even though they’d found eight good trickles and seeps in the area.
“I pulled some coffee for you,” Gilbride said, unzipping the †ap of the long tent.
Their home was dim and crowded with weapons, sleeping bags, a bucket for a toilet that gave off almost no smell at all in the thin, biting air. Still, Hernandez was surprised to see only Navy Communications Specialist McKay inside, sitting with a tattered paperback close to her face. It was torn in half to allow another trooper to read the other part. She barely glanced at them, but then looked up again. Hernandez realized there was something like fear in her brown eyes.
“Sir. Afternoon, sir,” she said.
“Was there a call on the radio?”
“No, sir.”
But she’s jumpy, too, he thought.
Their furniture consisted of steel ammo boxes and a wooden crate that served as his desk and their kitchen. Gilbride had their stove out, a civilian two-burner Coleman. It was unsafe to cook inside, not only due to the ‚re hazard but because of carbon monoxide poisoning, but no one stayed outdoors if they weren’t on duty. Hernandez hadn’t tried to enforce this rule, either, although he encouraged his noncoms to constantly harass the troops about opening a few vents before lighting a stove.
“McKay, I need a runner,” Gilbride said, rasping. “Tell everyone to knock off for the day. Short shift.”
McKay nodded. “Aye aye, Sarge.”
She’s too ready to go, Hernandez thought. And where is Anderson? He knew that only Bleeker and Wang were up the hill, mining rock. Gilbride was too ef‚cient. The setup was too perfect and now Hernandez was nervous himself.
It’s bad news, he thought.
6
Hernandez felt as if he’d walked into a mine‚eld. He could only wait. Lucy McKay stayed just long enough to get an insulated mug of coffee, then ducked through the †ap of the tent, the zipper rattling.
Gilbride tipped his head toward an assortment of MRE pouches. Most were slit open, their contents eaten or traded away. “Sugar?” Gilbride asked.
“Right. Thanks.” The whole sit-down was uncharacteristic, not the brotherly gesture itself but the extravagance of it, the using today what they wouldn’t have tomorrow. If there was a tomorrow. Sipping their mugs together in the chill green light of the tent, Hernandez deliberately gave voice to the thought. “Might as well live it up, right? If this is what you call living.”
“Yeah.” Gilbride ‚dgeted, moving two pots and a canteen for no reason except to move them. “This is already about the last of it, by the way, until we’re resupplied. The troops have been going through it fast.”
“Freeze your balls off,” Hernandez agreed.
“We will be resupplied, right?”
That must be the new rumor, that we’re on our own, Hernandez thought, and he was glad again for Gilbride’s friendship. His noncoms were the best way to get information to and from the rest of his command. “It could be a while before coffee makes their list,” he said, “but yes. Of course. They know we can’t live on moss.”
Leadville wouldn’t have dumped this much ‚repower on him if they were afraid his troops might come back with it, hungry and mad, and yet too many of their supplies had been pilfered before they opened the cases. Nearly every Meal, Ready to Eat packet had been cherry-picked of its best components: candy, coffee, toothpaste. Even some of the ammo cases had been light.
“They need us,” Hernandez said.
“Sure.”
“You know you can say anything to me,” he told Gilbride after another moment, curt now, even impatient. “It goes no further. Just you and me, Nate.”
Gilbride set his dirty mug on the board where Hernandez had tacked his area map, putting it down on the Utah border where there wasn’t any ‚ghting. No. Where it rested near the high region of the White River Plateau, where rumor said their own forces had used a nano weapon against the rebels, disintegrating two thousand men, women, and children for the crime of repairing a commercial airliner. White River had hoped to beat Leadville to the labs in Sacramento. Instead, they’d been annihilated as an object lesson to the other rebel forces.
North America resembled a different continent on his maps. Nothing lived in the East or Midwest or the long northern stretches of Canada. Even the surviving populations were limited to two spotty lines up and down the West. The band formed by the Rockies was much thicker than the Sierras. Otherwise there was nothing.
Red spearheads had been drawn to show air assaults out of Wyoming, Idaho, and British Columbia. Red squares showed advance armored units from Loveland Pass, plus circles and numbers for projected unit strength down in Arizona and New Mexico. A few of the numbers were black, from old Mexico. Leadville stood nearly alone against so much effort, except for three islands of loyalists.
“There are just a lot of people pissed off at things,” Gilbride said. He indicated the map, pretending that was what he meant.
Hernandez could see how much it cost his friend merely to edge around the idea. He respected Gilbride for it. Using their brains was the best of what the Marine Corps had schooled in them, after all, and the war scattered across the Continental Divide was no longer about food and resources. Not anymore. Everyone wanted the vaccine. He knew he should absolutely condemn Gilbride for even hinting at rebellion…but all he said was, “Yeah. Yeah, it’s a mess.” And that itself was a small kind of encouragement.
Hernandez had only limited information, which he knew was intentional, another kind of leash. He was a care
er man and he smiled thinly at the traditional foot soldier’s complaint: I am but a mushroom. They keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit.
Leadville wanted him to have no other options. Leadville had seen far too many deserters, so they not only intended to keep every ‚eld commander short on food and dependent on them. They also wanted their people to know as little as possible: the reasons for the war, and whether it was being won or lost. Hernandez had been ordered to maintain radio silence and quarantine, supposedly to prevent the rebels from discovering his location, but also to deafen him to the other side’s propaganda. They were all American. They all had the same equipment. The leadership had put Hernandez and other southern front commanders on frequencies once used by the Navy, yet it would be simple enough to listen to the enemy. To talk.
Lucy McKay was here to decrypt any messages received from Leadville and to encode their own reports. Back in town, there were a thousand techs like her combing radio traf‚c across the continent for patterns and clues. A thousand more studied intercepts from all over the world. Most of the civilian and military communications satellites were still up there above the sky and Leadville was top-heavy with personnel from agencies like the NSA, CIA, DIA, FBI, and smaller intelligence groups like those of various state police.
The rebels had those experts, too. Hackers on both sides had fought to lock out, retake, or destroy the satellites. The information war was just as real as the bullets and bombs.
Sitting beside Gilbride, Hernandez was careful not to turn and look at the radio. Was it possible that McKay had heard something she wasn’t supposed to? Could she have made transmissions? He left the tent for hours at a time and there was so little for anyone to do in this goddamned place. The temptation must be huge. All of her training, the whole reason she’d been assigned to his command, was to be a radioman — and there was no question in his mind that she and Gilbride had a secret.
Hernandez breathed in from his mug, reluctant to ‚nish it. The coffee had cooled but its taste was a luxury, as was the rich, bitter smell. In a way its goodness hurt. It touched the lonely feeling in his chest that he constantly fought to ignore.
He waded into the silence again. “We’ll do okay,” he said. “We always have, right?”
Gilbride only nodded, protecting his ragged throat.
“You know this hill is about the most forgotten corner of the map. It’s a vacation.” Hernandez laughed suddenly. The notion was absurb. “Hell, this is a garden spot,” he said. “We’ll probably sit out the whole war.”
He was babbling. He was scared, and Gilbride looked away from him as if ashamed.
There was real dissent among their Marines. The question wasn’t if there was a problem, but how bad was it? That it had reached the command tent told Hernandez a lot.
Over at Bunker 5, Gilbride had probably saved him from a confrontation he’d only begun to worry about. His troops were close to outright de‚ance. The injury to Kotowych could have been a catalyst. The more they saw themselves becoming hurt and sick, the quicker it would go. Tunis had said what many of his troops must be thinking. They wanted to stop working. They wanted to get out of here. Hernandez was lucky that word had spread in time for Gilbride to run to 5 and pull him away.
He drained his mug and stood up, losing the heat of his friend’s shoulder. Then he stepped to the door †ap, wrestling with his disappointment. He did not take a weapon. “Thank you,” he said cautiously, looking at the green fabric instead of Gilbride’s face. He tried to put as much meaning as possible into those two simple words.
“Sir,” Gilbride began, rasping.
Hernandez interrupted. “I need some air,” he said. “Just for a minute.” I’m sorry, he almost said, but there were too many ways to interpret an apology. Gilbride’s little sit-down had been an overture. Hernandez was sure of that now.
He drew open the tent’s zipper and ducked through, wincing at the change in temperature. A breeze had come up and the invisible cold swirled in and out of the rough shape of the trench. Then he closed the †ap, half-expecting Gilbride to follow. But no. Thank God. And there was no one waiting outside to stop him. So it was just an overture.
Frank Hernandez hiked away from the bunker, feeling very much like a man making an escape. At best it was only a delay, and quite likely a mistake. He didn’t want Gilbride to misunderstand. It’s a mess. But he didn’t go back. Not yet.
There were more troops out than usual, the work crews just returning. Laden with shovels and rock, they moved in twos and threes, heading for their shelters. Hernandez had no trouble avoiding them. He was trudging up while they were going down, but it felt like the wrong decision. Normally he went out of his way to exchange a few words or a smile, anything to bridge the space between of‚cer and enlisted.
He could see how the insurrection might have started. Each of his sergeants had three bunkers to supervise. That was as many as eighteen troops each, many of whom were on their own every night and for most of the day. If all of those men and women felt a certain way, one voice in opposition would not be enough, especially if that one person spoke up too late. It was a smaller model of what was happening to him now. The in†uence from below was too strong. A smart leader only chose directions in which his followers were willing to go. Pull too hard, and they might break away.
But what choice do we have except to stay? he wondered. Where else do they think we can go? Back to town? They were under orders. They had a job to do, no matter how unlikely it was that they would actually be of use in the air war.
Hernandez stopped beside a hunk of granite. There was a thin, warmer spot against its face and he worked to slow his breathing, taking in the empty sky again. Then he turned and hiked to the nearest summit. The wind tore into him, humming over the low, storm-blasted nubs of rock. His pantlegs and sleeves slapped like †ags.
Talk to Gilbride, he thought. Settle him down. If I can convince him ‚rst, then the two of us can work on everyone else in the command tent. If there’s still time.
If a single trooper was impatient, if any one of them was too angry or tired or careless, it could force his hand. If someone refused an order, what would he do? He couldn’t spare anyone to put people in custody, much less assign guards. Even if the crisis didn’t break his command, it would kill his effectiveness.
Morale was bad now. Imagine if he had ten people locked down in one of the shelters and a rotation of at least two more holding them at gunpoint day after day.
I need more time.
He couldn’t see Leadville beyond the serrated peaks, although at night there was the faintest glow of electricity like a pink fog seated down in the earth. Still, he stayed. The compulsion was too strong. The need for certainty.
Things had been moving fast since the decision to abandon the space station. There had been rumors of a shake-up in the general staff and Hernandez still wondered what had happened to James Hollister. Did he get away or was he in custody? Or shot for treason? Hernandez suspected the president’s council was afraid of a coup.
He also wondered if the vaccine nano really worked. It must. Otherwise the rebels wouldn’t be pressing so hard, burning through their few resources…and without that immunity, Captain Young and the other traitors wouldn’t have run off into the graveyard of Sacramento and refused to surrender. Would they? Maybe they were dead. Maybe they’d been captured and were being held out in California or in Leadville itself. He didn’t know. That information had been tightly suppressed, because if it got out…If it was true…
The loyalty of the diverse troops surrounding Leadville was tied to the city’s riches as well as the habit of command, but mostly to its riches. There was nowhere better to go.
What if people could walk below the barrier again?
No. It was too easy to blame Leadville for everything. Even if the leadership changed, should they really be doing anything differently? Leadville had the best labs on the planet. They should control and develop the vaccine. Hernandez believe
d this. If the other new nano weapon was real, they should have it as well. The wars on the other side of the planet could spread here too easily. Habitable ground was too scarce, and there had to be a center to hold.
Not so long ago the president’s council had been true representatives of the people, duly and fairly elected. They had made the best they could out of a very bad hand of cards, and yet… And yet he respected too many of the men and women who’d worked against him, James Hollister and Captain Young, Ruth Goldman and the survivor, Cam.
Hernandez shifted miserably in the cold and saw one dark bird †itting through the wind. He wondered again. How would all of the squares and arrows on his maps begin to rearrange themselves if the vaccine spread? There had been too many atrocities for America to easily reunite as one nation. All of them had seen too many good reasons to hate, and there would still be populations on other continents who were desperate for the vaccine. The only real question was the scope of the con†ict to come, who against who, on what ground, and when. He could almost grasp the shape of it. In many ways the new tide would be as vicious and all-consuming as the machine plague itself, and he was aware that small units like his own could be a deciding factor in the civil war, adding their weight to the ‚nal balance.
Frank Hernandez still had to decide where he would stand.
7
Ruth lifted her binoculars and grimaced, sweating inside her goggles and mask. The three of them had found a patch of shade beside a FedEx truck, but it barely helped. The truck had been soaking up heat all morning and now it radiated warmth as well as the odd, pasty smell of the packages baking inside. Cardboard and glue. The crowded highway was like a stove top. For a day and a half the sky had been utterly still, the clouds forgotten. Spring seemed to be giving way to early summer and the land was hot and windless, the sun like a white torch. They tried to avoid the darkest vehicles. Ruth could feel a black car through her glove or her jacket just leaning against it. Repeated contact had left her good hand feeling raw and pink. The outsides of her thighs were almost as bad, her knees, her hips, anywhere that rubbed constantly in the maze of cars.