by Ann Christy
She shakes her head and feeds a few more small sticks into the fire, building it slowly and well so that we’ll be able to keep it burning low and even for a good while. More heat and less light. After tucking in a final, small branch no bigger around than my thumb, she says, “I got sick when I was little. Brain cancer. This is where they went in to cut it out.”
“Oh, my gosh,” I whisper. I can’t imagine it.
“That’s why my eye is a little off, too.”
I can only shake my head at that. It’s almost funny in an entirely inappropriate way. I mean, she survives brain cancer only to have the world get taken over by dead people. What a frigging joke that is. She’s looking into the fire again, another small stack of slightly larger sticks at the ready. She seems entirely unconcerned with anything other than that fire.
“Well, it worked,” I say. “I mean, you can do everything and do it better than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
She shoots me a sidelong grin, her teeth so perfect she must have had braces, and answers in a teasing voice, “Not exactly. You won’t believe it when I say what did work.”
“Uh oh, I’m not sure I want to know. Was it voodoo or deader gallbladder extract or something?”
As always, her laugh is soft and quiet, but it’s no less genuine for being so. Emily tosses her head back, her throat works and she laughs, but all that comes out of her mouth are a series of small punctuations to her laugh. Her lips stay curved into a smile afterwards, and one of her eyebrows quirks up, so I know she’s going to tell me and it’s going to be something weird, like maybe it really was voodoo.
“Nanites,” she says, and waits for my reaction.
Nanites? Holy crap, is all I can think for a moment. A rapid fire repeat of the words, holy crap, runs through my mind. Nanites as in, groaning and people-eating nanite-infected humans of the sort that Sam became, the ones she calls in-betweeners. Nanites, as in the deaders who cover the world with their smell and their teeth and their dangerous appetites.
But all that comes out of my mouth is, “Uhh.”
She takes pity on me then, or maybe she sees a little of the confused fear I feel on my face, because the smile fades and she adds, “Different nanites. There used to be lots of good kinds before all this happened.” She waves the stick in her hand around us, meaning the world beyond our industrial haven.
I’m still fearful because I’ve learned since coming here to live with Emily exactly how the nanites did this. Before, I didn’t know. Neither did Sam. We thought it was a disease of some kind, though we knew the nanites had started it from news on TV. Of course, then there was no TV so it all became guesswork after that.
I’d been with my parents on summer vacation, far from home, when everything went bad. None of us saw the news until an embassy notice went out advising all travelers to return. From there, we’d learned that medical nanites had caused a problem, but like every other official announcement, the extent of the problem was down-played. By the time things were really awful, there wasn’t any news to get.
Cable went out quickly, and my parents had nothing as low-rent as an antenna so that we could receive broadcast signals. Even during the crisis they’d fought over the lack of an antenna, my father calling my mother a snob and her lobbing back that he should have stayed in the gutter, a favorite insult of hers. Then, from almost one moment to the next, the problem showed up in our neighborhood and we’d barely escaped with our lives.
After I lost my parents and found Sam, I was able to hear what the others thought, but they were almost as clueless as me. Sam had a whole pile of fiction he’d collected and read, looking for some clue as to what might possibly have spread the infection like it did, but in the end, he took all those books to another apartment in our building to keep them away from us. Fiction is just that, fiction.
“Are you still…Do you still…” I try to find a nice way to ask if she’s still infected with nanites, but words don’t come properly.
“No. They aren’t those kinds of nanites. Then again, we’re probably all infected at this point,” she says, understanding what my questions are before I do. She tosses down her stick and places our boiling rack over the fire, then she settles our big pot for drinking water on top of that. It will take a long while before the water boils hard enough that she’s satisfied, so we’ve got time to talk.
“Tell me,” I urge, but quietly. Jon lets out a sort of muffled, hard sigh and I see that he’s dropped off to sleep, his thumb slipping almost all the way out of his mouth. He’s two and I wish he would stop sucking his thumb. It’s not like we can take him to an orthodontist to fix the bowing of his front teeth I can already see happening. On the other hand, he’s been through the wringer just like everyone else, so I can’t bear to force the issue. When he’s more deeply asleep, I’ll pull his hand down. For now, I try not to jostle him too much and settle for stroking his baby-soft hair.
Maybe it’s because I’m not looking at her or maybe it’s just because of the dark. Perhaps it’s because we’re in an open space on the loading dock of one of the warehouses and not in the small intimate confines of the offices. Whatever the reason, Emily finally shares something of herself with me.
She’s always been sort of enigmatic, not speaking too much about the details of her time before we met, never complaining or hinting at her feelings. It’s not that she’s cold, because she’s anything but that. It’s just that rather than talk about herself, her questions are almost always for me. When we talk, she encourages me to share, making sure Jon and I feel safe and comfortable, and it’s only later that I realize that we only talked about me. She’s always available with a ready ear when things get to be too much. After almost four months here, this is really the first time I get to hear about her in anything other than the most superficial way.
And what she says is so very sad. I’m frequently of the opinion that my life before the deaders came sucked, but hers takes the cake. I can’t even imagine living through years of fighting a brain tumor as a little kid, knowing I’ll die from it. But she did.
And then the nanites—and they are clearly different nanites based on her explanation—came and saved her at the last possible minute. It’s like a movie. One of those sad movies where the whole audience cries and then leaves the theater with their arms draped over their kids’ shoulders, grateful for their health and momentarily forgiving of any and all annoyances.
“But now they’re gone, the nanites?” I ask, just to be sure.
“Yep. They weren’t the kind like in the deaders or the in-betweeners. Of course, like I said, we’re all probably re-infected at this point. But the ones from my cancer are gone for sure. Taken individually, nanites are actually quite fragile and they don’t last long. The First Responder nanites have a couple of extra things that change those limitations and that’s what makes them last out in the world now. They have factory nanites that can manufacture a limited set of nanites depending on their program. The factories build more nanites to replace those that are lost and can build even more factories. And they have updater nanites, which are really nothing more than relays for network updates to their programs. And nanites really isn’t the right term anyway. They are small, but not as small as the dumbest of the nanites. Of course, size is relative. They are still super small, far too small to see with any microscope you could scavenge up and still use.” She stirs the pot while she talks, checking to be sure that the heat circulates in the pot well, not meeting my eyes.
“So, are the ones in the deaders being updated?”
“Oh, no. Not anymore. That last update is what caused all this. Now, they just keep spreading via bites because the program requires distribution and persistence. They bite because of human instinct, not because the nanites specifically tell them to. That’s how it works. The human brain working at its most basic level until there’s not enough left to have instincts, then they decay into the immobile deaders.”
I nod, finally understanding a little bit better
the stages I see deaders in. Also, what happened to Sam makes more sense as well. There must have been a lot more of the essence of who he was still inside his brain, more than the other in-betweeners at any rate.
“So, no factories for you then? What happens if it comes back?” I ask, then wish I hadn’t when I see her flinch a little, the flickering fire painting her pained expression in stark shadows.
“It’s come back before,” she admits, but I think she says it reluctantly, as if speaking of her cancer will make it come back again. “On the upside, I know where they have the nanites stored. The same hospital I went to for my doses probably has some. I suppose I could go back. I’m sure I could scrounge some up from storage. That’s not the sort of thing people loot.”
For some reason, I feel like she’s either lying or not telling me the whole truth. There’s just something that rings false in her flippant, unconcerned tone.
“Well, if that happens, you just give me directions and I’ll go for you. I owe you one,” I say. Then I decide to leave it alone. I can tell it’s been a strain for her to talk like this, and I don’t want to upset her. She’s the one who saved Jon and me. I do owe her one, a big one. And she’s become my only friend. That’s reason enough all by itself.
Today - Downtown is the Place to Be
We’re looking to make just over forty miles a day for two days. That’s ambitious when the conditions on the roads are taken into consideration. It’s even more ambitious when I stop to think about the other people that might be out there and the lack of caution we’ll have to show to get that many miles behind us.
Our plan allows for no more than three days at the hospital. We’ve got a week for the trip in total, so if it takes any longer than two days to get there, we’ll be cutting into our time at the hospital. I’m pretty sure we’ll need every second—or more—once we get there. Who knows what we’ll find? Somehow I doubt there will be a handy sign on the wall with an arrow pointing to nanite storage.
The hospital isn’t in this city, but rather near the military base that lies much further away on the outskirts of the state’s biggest city. That means we’ll be going through part of this city, hitting the highway for more than fifty miles, and then making a long looping curve around the base to the hospital side. Beyond the parts of downtown and college park that we’ve scavenged—and where I lived for two years hidden in an apartment with Sam and the other kids—we have exactly zero clue on the condition the world might be in at this point.
Will every other place be overrun with deaders? Will there be in-betweeners that have lasted for four years, feeding on the abundant wildlife in the forests and fields between here and the base? Will there be encampments of humans or even a human town? Might there be a whole town that’s doing great and following the rules of civilized behavior?
Maybe not. Probably not. At least on the people front. People are dangerous.
“First watch?” Charlie asks, falling into the abbreviated, breath-saving speech we always use when we’re on a run.
I nod and say, “I got it,” over the wind noise.
True to my word, I keep my eyes on the further distance, looking for smoke or deaders or in-betweeners that might cause a problem. And people. Really, I keep my eyes peeled for anything that might be dangerous or of interest.
Charlie, on the other hand, takes the lead and watches the road. We can’t afford flat tires and the roads are a hot mess. Between the broken glass, the shards of metal and the buckling of the asphalt, our path needs to be watched carefully. All I have to do is follow him and if he swerves too rapidly or alerts me, then I can pay attention to the road. Otherwise, I only need the barest of glances down to stay behind him and follow his general path.
We each have our jobs and we’re used to doing them by now. We’ll switch after a while to keep alert and make sure we don’t get motion sick from keeping our focus at a set distance. But for now, it’s nice.
The warmth of the changing season is welcome. This past winter was harsh and long, our spring wet and unpleasantly cool. It’s only been in the last month that things have begun to get better and today, it’s positively balmy. I learned that word from one of the romance books I’ve been snitching from our stash in the office. I like that word and I especially like the way it feels in real life.
A couple of deaders attached to the rusting hulk of a car on the side of the road barely move as we pass them by. They’re yucky ones, no eyes and mouths little more than raw gray holes in their faces. Cars aren’t usually too attractive to them but this one was wrecked and must have caught fire at some point. Those incidents burned or peeled off enough paint to make the metal attractive and they are latched onto it like ticks onto skin. They almost seem to be melting into the ground right where they are, and I doubt they could get up and come after us even if we danced around naked waving a bowl of blood in their faces.
I don’t see anything that would bother me in any direction. There’s not so much as a single wisp of smoke, though I would expect any small groups of humans to be like us and limit fires to times when it would be difficult to spot any evidence of smoke. There are no screams—human or otherwise—and no life to be seen except birds wheeling in the sky. The birds dominate the world around us instead of humans now.
Once we hit the downtown area, we have to be careful again, so we both slow down and watch everything. Car glass, window glass and bottle glass vie with each other to puncture our tires. Blinds rattle behind broken windows and the noises make us flinch and keep our hands near our weapons. Ragged streamers of old curtains flutter and draw our eyes. Downtown can be dangerous and we react—or overreact—accordingly. Even with so few in-betweeners around, I’ve never been downtown without at least one scary encounter that involves head smashing.
A groaning sound drifts on the wind toward us. We both hear it at the same time, whispering, “Incoming,” to each other in tandem. We both let our bikes slow so that we can get a bead on where the in-betweener might be, and then stop once he comes into view. If possible, we always try to take down in-betweeners when we come across them, even if they aren’t a specific threat at that instant in time. No one likes a free-range in-betweener.
The in-betweener looks like a member of the last group of humans we interacted with. If he is, then his fellows are now caged alongside Emily, being fed and watered to varying degrees in anticipation of our success. Test subjects, as it were. And if we’re not successful, well, it’s not like I’ll feel bad about killing them twice. We knew there had to be at least one more of them—an extra pack and bedroll gave that away. If this is the man, then he is the only one we couldn’t catch.
He’s not a huge man, or rather, I should say that he wasn’t a huge man. Now, he’s not a man at all. He’s an in-betweener, his heart restarted after death by his nanites but not before his brain lacked oxygen for some period of time. Given that he’s still got an arrow sticking out of his chest, I’m thinking he went a long time without it. I’m not sure how they do it, but even with a bullet or an arrow passing right through the heart, the nanites somehow heal it most of the time, building tissue around the intruding object and fixing the constant leaks. It’s a mystery.
He looks like crap. Way worse than his friends. He’s probably finding it difficult to get food since the birds are hard to catch and all he has is whatever instincts are left inside his brain. And he’s gone from gray to almost blue-gray, especially around the mouth and eyes, meaning he’s not getting a whole lot of oxygen to circulate his system. So, not a great repair job by the nanites overall.
But he’s moving, that’s for sure.
“You want him?” I ask Charlie. He’s got his crossbow up and at the ready, his finger itching along the trigger.
He nods and I hear the chunk-thwang of the bolt being set free. There’s not even the space of time a heartbeat might take between his nod and his shot. It’s a good shot, but the guy is moving, so getting a spine severing shot isn’t really an option. Still, it�
�s a good one and the guy’s head jerks back like he got hit in the face with a shovel. He flies backward and hits the sidewalk with a crack that makes me wince.
“That’ll take time to fix,” I comment, and reach out for the handlebars of his bike.
Charlie hops off and loads another bolt. I’m a little jealous of his crossbow and the way he works it so easily. Mine is one of Emily’s old ones and easy to use, but his is just too impressive for words. Where he liberated it from I have no idea, but it’s a thing of beauty. It even has a scope on it that works at night, but it sucks the juice from batteries like crazy, so he’s sparing with it even when he’s got the watch.
“Don’t screw around, Charlie,” I warn when I see him cock his head to the side like he’s considering what to do first.
“It’s one of them,” he says, as if that’s all the answer I need to give him carte blanche on the in-betweener.
I just grunt in response to that because he’s got a point. This group moved into the area some time ago, but we hadn’t laid eyes on them, only their smoke. We should have realized they weren’t the cautious and nice kind of folks because they didn’t hide their smoke like we did. But we didn’t. And when we found them, or rather, when our paths crossed, it wasn’t pretty. We never did find Gloria’s body. Maribelle lost her mother that day. We don’t forgive things like that.
But all that’s in the past and any revenge we might have taken has already been meted out. He and his friends are in-betweeners. Anything else is wasted on them.
Charlie lowers his bow and lifts a builder’s hammer from his belt. While the in-betweener’s nanites go into overdrive to repair the damage to their host he flops around like a fish out of water on the sidewalk.
Even now, the in-betweener’s bearded face is hideously expressive, pulled into a rictus of hunger and need, and his head jerks upward toward Charlie while his overgrown nails scritch against the pavement. Charlie circles the in-betweener, hefting the hammer so that the former human’s eyes keep being drawn to it. Charlie is grinning. This is so unhealthy.