This Broken Veil (Ran Book 2)

by Joshua Guess

  If the fuel tanks were actually some infrastructure predating the end of civilization, the ease of use and compatibility with the military hardware implied someone knew the end was coming. That was far from the only scenario explaining a high degree of foreknowledge, but seemed the most likely to me. Even if they didn't predict this specific apocalypse, at least an apocalypse.

  Or they might have been put in place by someone else, most likely soldiers or engineers from another base. The US had a lot of armed forces, after all. It would make sense, given the way their communications infrastructure was designed, that they would still have cohesion well beyond civilian survivors.

  The soldier I’d spoken to, a stone-faced guy in his late forties, glanced at me. “Few more days. We’re about halfway there.”

  I leaned against the cab of the truck, hands loosely locked in my lap. “This is about where I’d expect a random encounter.”

  “A what?” stone face asked. Like the other soldiers, he lacked a name tape on his uniform.

  “A random encounter,” I repeated. “Like in Dungeons and Dragons. When your party travels a certain distance, the dungeon master rolls dice to see what kind of random monster you run into. Usually it’s about halfway to your destination. More than that and it bogs down play. Less and it feels like you’re on easy mode or something.”

  He snorted. “Not likely. Shamblers won’t bother us.”

  I pulled my legs under me and sat in lotus, my heavy boots scraping against the bed of the truck. “Why is that, exactly? We’ve been pretty much zombie-free this whole trip. If you guys have a secret to keeping them away, it seems like the sort of thing everyone else should also know.”

  He frowned at me. “What, you don’t know?”

  I frowned back. “I clearly don’t.”

  The older man hiked a thumb at the truck in front of us, the one with the Reavers in their tiny boxes. “It’s them. They put out a smell or pheromone or something. Drives the dead ones away.”

  I opened my mouth to explain how untrue that was and paused in the act of raising a finger at him. My brain cycled through the last few months and I realized he was right. We’d killed a nest of Reavers early on, but I had done most of the scouting against them and was so focused on the threat they posed that I didn’t see the obvious. None of us had.

  “It can’t be that easy,” I said, dumbstruck.

  Stone face barked a laugh. “Easy? Fuck no, lady. It’s not easy. Doesn’t work if they’re dead, and as soon as Reavers see they’re up against superior firepower, they run. Strong as they are, the fuckers can outrun Usain Bolt. You have to trap ’em a few at a time and it takes a team to subdue even the weaker ones like those. They bite hard enough to break bone, kick like a mule, and their fingers can push right through your skin. Saw a guy get half his forearm muscle ripped off that way.”

  Shaking my head, I tried to wrap my mind around it. “That’s still amazing, though. How far does the effect spread?”

  He turned and looked at me straight-on, then. His eyes were a startling shade of light gray, almost luminous in his weather-beaten face. “Before you get too excited, the docs back at base think there’s a reason Reavers tend to cluster. Idea is, whatever causes them to be the way they are is more likely to spread to other people over time.”

  I snorted. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not an expert on infectious disease, but Nero is just one illness. It’s the people who react to it who are the wild card.”

  He regarded me with frank disappointment. “You’re right; you aren’t an expert. The people back at base? They are. Maybe you should check yourself on how much faith you want to put in your assumptions and what you hear on the radio. I mean, we didn’t even bother broadcasting about the Reavers because it was so obvious anyone could see it. But you didn’t. So maybe you don’t actually know what you’re talking about all the time.”

  He said nothing else until we moved out once more, and even then it was only a warning that we were about to start moving. I sat in silence for a long time. I tried to pull back from the situation and assess it objectively.

  Early on I had shot an abusive asshole in the knee to keep him from chasing down his partner and hurting her. I had reasons and didn’t feel bad in the slightest, but it wasn’t to punish him. No part of me felt like pulling the trigger was justice it was a necessary act to prevent harm coming to others.

  I had missed the importance of the lack of zombies around Reavers. It couldn’t be a hard and fast rule—I had seen interactions between the two from time to time—but as I recalled my stint sitting in a tree weeks after the infection took hold, it was obvious to me. Reavers weren’t worried about zombies, not really. Why would a house full of them walk outside at will and show no fear at all, if they weren’t at least partially shielded by their own version of the virus?

  Even just now I had made a statement of fact based on nothing more than my own admittedly limited knowledge as if it were gospel.

  Arrogance. That was my weakness. Too long on my own, having to survive and thrive with no help from anyone. Even Bastion reinforced that behavior. It was, after all, my home to begin with. I had taken a central role there. Put myself in a position to lead.

  I was taken from my home, true, but with minimal bloodshed. They weren’t pretending it was right, either.

  Just necessary.

  6

  My first thought upon seeing the base was: Whoa, this is a castle.

  My second thought was: Someone fucked this castle up.

  When I voiced these thoughts, Garcia, who was sitting next to me, tsked gently. “It’s not a castle. It’s a hill fort. Kind of.”

  The kind of hill fort was impressive. Not just in an architectural sense, but in scale as well. Looking up at it messed with my reality a little, the same way standing at the base of a mountain will. Your brain is used to chopping land features off into human-sized bits and processing them. That’s how depth perception and perspective work. My brain, faced with a steep and sudden fist of earth rising up a few hundred feet and topped with what looked like a single piece of flowing stone wrapped around some buildings, could not compute.

  “If we have to climb that, I’m just gonna have you shoot me now if that’s okay,” I said.

  Garcia shook her head. “You’re not getting off that easy. But no, we don’t climb. We’re looking at the back of it right now. We’ll circle around to the entrance. Gentler slope going to the front door. We’ll ride all the way in.”

  “Okay,” I said, “but what is it, exactly? Because I’m still saying castle.”

  Garcia gave me some side-eye. “You won’t believe me.”

  “Girl, we live in the fucking zombie apocalypse. My capacity for belief borders on legendary. Do your worst.”

  She quirked her face in a you-asked-for-it expression and pointed up. “So about twenty years back, a bunch of militia guys who got hard over the bombing in Oklahoma City decide to do some real estate investing. They find this land with the remains of an old hill fort on it. Not a historical site or anything, just ruins no one cares about. They apparently realize building their pretend base from the ground up would be super, crazy expensive. One of them runs a demolition company…”

  I sighed. “Of course he does.”

  Garcia smiled. “Right? So anyway, part of what the guy knows how to do is trigger controlled explosions in pit mines. That’s how he made the wall going around the outside of it. That’s all one piece of stone. They covered it with a layer of cement, but it’s bedrock. Then they hollowed it out, shaped it, and spent the next five years pouring money into it like cash is falling from the sky. Even got a couple bigshot investors from Texas to join in. It was going to be their base of operations for whatever plan they had in the event of a race war or whatever.”

  “I can’t help noting the irony here. That we’re using it in an actual end of the world scenario,” I mused.

  Garcia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that one never gets old. Everyone at the fort
knows the story for that very reason. There are a few documents floating around from when the feds took the place, explaining how they did it. Those investors wanted updates on how their money was being spent, turns out.”

  I cocked my head. “I never heard about any raid on a militia camp in this part of the country.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” Garcia said, clearly trying to hold back laughter, “because there wasn’t one. Turns out all that griping about taxes wasn’t just a philosophical decision; they never paid any on the place. By then 9/11 had happened and someone in the Justice Department must have had coffee with a Defense Department official, because before they knew what hit them, the militia guys were out and this all seized by the feds.”

  I looked up at the imposing structure as we moved around it. “So it became, what, a military base?”

  “Not exactly,” Garcia said. “At the time everyone was sure the next big set of terror attacks could happen anywhere at any time. So the DoD and Homeland used it as a test site. It became an unofficial reserve site. Manned by a skeleton crew, stocked with everything from medical supplies to rations and dry goods to heavy machinery. Even the trucks.” She slapped the metal we sat on. “Most of the stuff still got rotated out on a schedule to make sure the bullets were good and the food edible. Guess it didn’t cost all that much to maintain, and Homeland did love spending that budget.”

  “What do you call it?” I asked. “Does it have a name?”

  Garcia shook her head. “No, and that was the point. As far as anyone knew, it was just a repo the government used to store old junk. Giving it a name would make it stand out, give people a reason to look into it. We just call it the base or the fort. Either one works.”

  We rounded the broad base of the hill and began trundling toward the long ramp to the entrance. Power lines snaked down the hill and into the ground, thick and armored. I caught the glitter of distant glass in a field.

  “Solar power?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Garcia answered. “Officially it was put up as a part of an energy initiative back in the early parts of the Bush administration to help manage rural power supplies in case of emergency.”

  “Unofficially it’s there to supply this place with power and charge your batteries.”

  Garcia shifted her weight, moving her rifle slightly. “You got it. First thing people were worried about was terrorists hitting the grid. Wouldn’t be much of a backup site if the lights didn’t work.”

  A small part of me wanted to speak up and defend my smaller, less impressive bunker, even though it was unlikely my captors even knew about it. I had a small case of secret base envy.

  The other part of me almost got physically aroused at the thing. I wanted to keep it for myself.

  At least I’d be living there.

  Up close the fort didn’t look like much. The skim coat of cement on the wall was uneven and flaking in places, exposing the bedrock below. The main gate was a ponderous, flat piece of steel that rolled into a slot in the wall as we approached.

  Inside was a courtyard covered in crops, mostly potatoes. It lifted my heart a little to know the people here weren’t just relying on prepackaged meals. I made a mental note to ask whether there were crops being tended outside the walls. Potatoes were high yield, but the small area between the stout gray buildings wasn’t enough for sustainability.

  “Through here,” Garcia said, placing a hand on my back and gently guiding me. “This is intake, where we do initial assessment and all that jazz. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

  The tone of her voice was reassuring, but something about it rang just a little false. Think of politicians and their surrogates speaking on the news, that practiced and smooth nonsense they spewed to spin away things like facts. That was what Garcia sounded like just then, though it was only a glimmer.

  I flashed back over the previous days and had to wonder if the way she’d treated me was nothing more than a tactic. A way to keep me relaxed and cooperative. Sort of how the way I’d been acting was meant to do the same.

  Then we were walking through the door and it was too late to worry about it.

  The exterior of the building set up certain expectations, and they were wrong. So wrong. It was like walking into a different set in a TV studio. I actually looked back to see the difference, noting the blank stone edging the doorway and how it gave way to stark white plaster, cool lighting, even a few paintings hanging on the wall. It looked exactly like a doctor’s office, complete with chairs and magazines strewn across end tables.

  Behind the desk sat a receptionist. He had the military look but wore civilian clothes, and could have been Indian or middle eastern. He leaned over a sprawl of paperwork, scribbling away furiously.

  Garcia cleared her throat. “Uh, Captain Pickles, sir.”

  I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. They were great belly laughs, so uncontrollable and strong I had trouble breathing. I leaned over and let the tears cascade to the floor. It was one of those bursts of laughter that doesn’t want to stop because you keep thinking of what was so damn funny and it starts all over again.

  “Whenever you’re done,” the man, presumably a captain named Pickles, said in a north English accent weathered by years away from home.

  I forced myself to calm down, the last few chuckles coming in random bursts like static. “I’m sorry, it’s just…”

  The man smiled grimly. “Yes, you’re not the first. I’ve been told my name and rank make me sound like a character from a children’s cartoon. If it helps, you may call me John. I will be your primary physician.”

  I extended a hand. “Ran Lawson.” He shook it without hesitation, his grip firm. “I will be your prisoner and guinea pig.”

  He blanched, dark eyes moving away from mine. “Yes, well, it won’t be all that dire. Our tests are generally non-invasive. Though if the advance reports about your status are true, I would very much like to obtain a sample of your cerebrospinal fluid.”

  “Not big on foreplay, are you?” I asked. “Didn’t even offer to buy me dinner.”

  John had the decency to look sheepish. It softened the edge of his angular features. “I’m sorry, but even among Triggers there is a startling variance in the way the virus presents. It’s very exciting and incredibly frustrating. You’re the first to come our way in nearly a month. I’d like to get right to it, if you don’t mind.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

  I did, though. I should have been at home with my friends. With Jem. I should have been snuggled up with my dig while reading a book. Faced with the reality of being a test subject against my will, those truths were underscored. It was about to start.

  “Sergeant Garcia will stay with us at all times,” John said. “For your sake and mine.”

  He took me to an examination room only marginally more stocked with gear than your average family doctor’s office. There were a few small pieces of lab equipment, an unused IV pole nestled in one corner, and a microscope, but otherwise it was as bland and forgettable as any place like it I’d ever been.

  He took my vital signs, weight and height. He warmed the stethoscope by rubbing it on his shirt, the sort of small kindness I hadn’t expected even if it was likely an ingrained habit for him. Then it was on to blood samples, of which he took several.

  “We have a battery of physical tests we run on everyone we bring in,” John said after drawing ten gallons of my blood. “It gives us a baseline for every variant of the virus. We’ll test you as you are now, then trigger a bout of Shivers to see the difference.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I said glumly.

  John pursed his lips. “I understand you’re unhappy with your situation, and if I’m being frank I’m not thrilled with the necessity. But do know that every person in this facility has undergone every test we’ll put you through. Sergeant Garcia and myself included. We’re desperate for any knowledge we can wring from this.”

  I pushed my hair behind my
ear. “What are the chances it’ll actually do any good?”

  He considered this for a few seconds. “How much microbiology do you have? Any education in it?”

  I waggled a hand in a see-saw. “College was a long time ago. I guess I’m an educated amateur.”

  “Reasonable,” he said. “Well, our goal is much like any researcher has when studying a disease. We’re trying to isolate common elements between all strains of the Nero virus, something shared weak point we can use as an angle of attack. We believe the fully immune like myself may hold the answer, but the adaptive nature of people like you is almost as likely. Whatever it is in your biochemistry that changes the way your strain of the virus expresses its symptoms is something we’re desperate to find. And that takes time.”

  I nodded slowly. “Which is why you have to put me in a cell. Because you can’t risk your test subjects getting loose.”

  John’s eyebrows knitted together. “You’ll be in a locked, secure building at night, yes. But you’ll also have freedom of movement inside it, and freedom of the base during the day. We’re not monsters, Miss Lawson. We’re just very determined to solve this before the human race topples over the brink.”

  If ever a line screamed justification, it was that one.

  7

  Turns out the good doctor’s idea of physical tests was to wear my ass out. I spent the first night in the fort in an isolated room within the medical wing itself, which according to Garcia was also standard practice. The next morning I had a surprisingly rounded breakfast with actual eggs—there was indeed a small farm nearby—before being asked to run, lift, and do reflex tests until my eyes glazed over.

  I rested for a solid four hours afterward, during which I napped, then started the process over again. This time I stripped off my heavy outer shirt and wore my tank top. There was a small, circular patch of darker skin on my right collarbone and it caught Doctor John’s attention.