BURN - Melt Book 4: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series)

by JJ Pike

  Christine was on high alert. It was never good when someone said, “if I were you.” It meant they were trying to influence you directly. Usually not in a good way. Alice had taught her that.

  “If I were you, I would tell them to get out of Manhattan as fast as possible. End the evacuation. No point throwing good resources at a bad situation. It’s a lost cause. We should cut our losses and concentrate on containing MELT.” Fran nodded vigorously. She did not want to be misunderstood.

  Christine felt her heart rate increase. There was something about the way Fran was looking at her that didn’t add up. It was one of those terrible upside-down moments when she wondered if the person speaking meant the opposite of what they’d said out loud and was trying to play her. Alice had never said a bad word about Fran. On the contrary, she had sung the young woman's praises. But here she was, advocating something that was barely short of mass murder.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Fran.

  “I doubt it very much,” said Christine.

  The man in the flashy uniform, whom she’d heard marching across the room, stopped abruptly beside them. He was broad across the shoulders, which was just as well given how many medals and ribbons and bits of military effluvia were sewn across his chest. It was another code. A code that signaled that he was important, someone who had done things, conducted himself with honor or valor or some quality the Army wished to encourage in their ranks.

  “Is this her?” he said.

  “This is she.”

  “She’s the cat’s mother,” said Christine. It popped unbidden out of her. She almost never remembered anything her mother had said. Mother had been such a mouse; a shadow, almost completely eclipsed by her father.

  “I’m General Hoyt,” he said. “I need you to brief me on what’s going on, on the ground.”

  “On the ground?”

  “The professor is brilliant,” said Fran, “but she is literal. Mold your questions so that you are asking the specific question that you want answered. Do not ask her to infer, until she has enough data to do so with some level of certainty. Do not use metaphor, simile, analogy, or creative language.”

  Christine nodded in approval. That was all perfectly correct. How had Fran known to say that? Had Alice trained her? That would be a blessing. If only she could have somebody following her around all the time, telling people how to talk to her.

  “Tell me what you want to know, General. Do not have a hidden agenda that you believe I ought to understand. I will not. If you have any such agenda, make it unhidden. I cannot guess at it. I’ll tell you everything I’ve learned and help you every way I can, but you need to talk to me in a way that I can understand. I am, as Fran explained, a literalist. Not because I wish to confound and frustrate, but because of the way my brain is configured. Now, please, proceed.”

  General Hoyt grunted.

  The Professor raised her eyebrows. “What did I tell you not five-seconds ago? Be plain. If you have language, use it. Me, for example, raising my eyebrows. For all you know it means I am flirting with you. Does it? Doesn’t it? How would you know? What would tell you so? You say it means one thing and I say it means another. I do not communicate in grunts, snorts, winks, smirks, side-eyes, flaring of the nostrils, or other culturally-coded means of expression. They are to me as Egyptian might be to you. Unless you speak Egyptian, in which case my comparison is flawed.”

  The General blushed.

  Christine had used this example many times before. She had yet to meet anyone who spoke Egyptian, but she threw it into the speech because it seemed to soften the message. Whether it was delivered softly or harshly, she needed him to understand that she was not party to the “universality” of gestures’ meanings as he was.

  “I can judge your meaning by two things, sir: what you say, which I will take at so-called face value, and what you do, which cumulatively will show me a pattern that I will be able to decipher and trust. We are, in all things, what we do.”

  He stumbled, searching for the words. “I comprehend your meaning, Professor, and will endeavor to speak plainly.”

  The Professor rolled her shoulders. The day kept getting better. She was in a place of peace, where new people were compelled to make an extra effort to comprehend her mode of communication. Never had she had such power and influence. “I understand from Fran that Manhattan is now subsumed.”

  General Hoyt nodded. “That is correct. Manhattan is not a flat plane, but we’re considering it entirely flooded. There are a few high points that are not yet underwater, but if things continue as they have been, it’s not going to be long before they are.”

  Christine waited. They had to have done some analysis, worked out the rate of flow, have some estimates as to when the city would be unnavigable. If Fran was correct in her claim that they wanted her to help determine whether or not to send troops in, she would need a great deal more data than she had been given.

  The General did not comment further. That meant either he could not, like her, read meaning into her silence or there was nothing more to add. They’d put their operation together at great speed. There was every chance the disparate departments had not yet had a chance to collate their data, making for a cogent analysis. “Do we know when Manhattan will be entirely underwater?”

  “No.”

  Christine waited. When the pause lasted longer than even she was accustomed to waiting, she decided it best to move things along so she could get to her team and start work. “What else do you need to know?”

  “MELT has destroyed Manhattan,” said the General. It wasn’t a question, but neither was it an accurate assertion.

  “Almost.”

  “We need to know whether it is slowing down, speeding up, losing potency. We need some guidance as to what we might expect next.”

  “I can’t possibly tell you without reviewing what my team has uncovered.”

  The General nodded and marched away. All in all, it was a satisfying conversation.

  Fran remained at her side. “How can I help?”

  “When I left Manhattan, there was an overabundance of dead rats in the water. There were so many it was almost like a blanket. Has anyone collected any of these rats?” Christine made her way towards the glass enclosure on the far side of the room.

  “We have,” said Fran. “We have water samples, rats, and human cadavers. We also have, in a secure ward that is neither adjacent nor adjoining this building, or any other structure where uninfected humans work, several people who appear to have been scarred or burned or otherwise injured by MELT.”

  “Excellent,” said Christine. She didn’t need to explain, as she might if Fran were a plain Normal, that she did not mean it was excellent that humans might have contracted MELT, but rather that so much evidence had already been collected and was, presumably, being sorted as they spoke. “Has someone started to sort the cadavers into type?”

  “I understand this to be the case,” said Fran. “Please remember Professor, I’m not a scientist. While I’ve worked at K&P for several years, my training is in administrative support. You will need to tell me, in plain, non-jargon and non-technical terms, what it is you want and then I will work to get it for you. If I don’t understand anything you say, I ask permission to stop you, no matter who you’re talking to, in order to gain clarity.”

  “Permission granted.” This new relationship with Fran was going swimmingly. “I shall retire to my new lab and talk to my team. I expect to have a working hypothesis for the General within three hours.”

  Fran’s face fell and the blood drained from her cheeks.

  “Is three hours too long? I believed that to be fast, given all the material there is to review and the importance, in these early stages, of getting the analysis right.”

  Fran pointed over Christine’s shoulder.

  Christine turned in time to see the saboteur himself approaching her, smiling and nodding and holding out his hand, as if nothing had happened.

 
“Professor Baxter, how good to see you.” It was Michael Rayton.

  The distance between her own flattened palm and her brain shortened to a millisecond and she slapped the man full across the face as hard as she could. “What are you doing here?”

  “Hold your damn horses,” he said. “I know I was on the list. I know you think I did something to MELT. I’m here to tell you I didn’t.”

  “What list?”

  “There was a list of suggested saboteurs. I was on that list. Erroneously, I might add.”

  Michael had worked with Christine long enough to speak plainly and clearly. Of that she was grateful, though she still wanted him to leave the premises immediately. She’d known nothing about a list, but it was puzzling. If he were a saboteur he wasn’t likely to admit it up front, but neither would he have come back to K&P. Her brain was not designed to unravel problems that included human behavior. “Behavioral science” was soft, barely science at all in her opinion. There were those who claimed you could predict human behavior with great precision, but it came dangerously close to mind reading and crystal gazing as far as she was concerned. “I don’t want you in my laboratory.”

  Michael took Professor Baxter by the elbow. “If we might have a word in private?”

  She wrenched her arm away. “No. I have nothing to say to you and you have nothing to say to me. Until I have watched the security footage, I don’t want you near me. Get out and stay out until I say you can return.” Again, she was struck by how wonderful it was to be the absolute boss. When Jake had been around, she’d had to train hard for every conversation she had with him and she’d rarely won. This was glorious. She was going to be both heard and heeded.

  “We need to investigate this together,” said Michael. “I need access to the lab, the personnel files, and security footage.”

  He was going to try to cover his tracks. If she gave him access he could wipe all traces of his access to the lab from the official record. She could not let that happen.

  “This is my colleague Jo Morgan.” He waved his hand towards the woman standing at his side. The woman—who could have been anywhere from 30 to 45, it was impossible for Christine to tell—was attentive, but didn’t seem to be on alert. “She’s with the FBI. They’re the lead investigators. You’ll need to give her access.” He turned to Jo. “I can bow out for a while. Just until you have what you need.”

  That was not logical. If Jo Morgan was with the FBI, she would already have been able to review the files and footage. Christine wasn’t fooled. She could set a trap and catch them in a lie. “Don’t you already have access, Jo?”

  “We do,” said Jo. She ambled away from Michael and joined Christine. “We have access to everything except your personal files. They are encrypted. Devilishly clever, what you did there.”

  Christine had worked hard to make sure that her files were secure. Good to know even the code breakers couldn’t get in. She was, after all, the lead scientist on MELT. She, more than anyone else, knew that MELT needed to be protected. Jake had been paranoid about industrial espionage, but she was more worried about the weaponization possibilities. A chill ran down her spine. Weaponization. Was that what had happened? Had someone weaponized MELT? Without her knowing? How had Michael gotten a sample? Or had he introduced a contaminant into MELT right under her nose, unleashing this terrible plague of plastic-eating destruction upon them? Jan van Karpel ran the tightest, cleanest lab she’d ever had the pleasure of working in. He would never have allowed it to happen. He was meticulous. His records would show that. How had Michael brought this terrible eventuality to pass? Somewhere, in the mass of paperwork that a project of this magnitude created, were the answers. She needed only to dig. Perhaps the FBI might be useful in that regard. They had some expertise in pattern recognition. She could offload part of the investigation to them, while she concentrated on the science.

  Jo hadn’t moved. Nor had she pressed for an answer. The day kept improving. If they’d staffed her lab with decent scientists, it might be in contention for one of her “best days.” Enemies under lock and key; saboteurs banished from her lab; answers waiting to be uncovered. If she got this right, MELT would ultimately be harnessed and redirected and used properly. That was still possible.

  Concentrate, Christine. Keep focus. Don’t get bogged down. One thing at a time.

  “I do not want him to have access.”

  “It’s complicated,” said Jo. “I can explain if you’d like to follow me. We have a desk waiting for you in a quiet corner. We had partitions set up so you could work, undisturbed and unmolested. I understand you prefer the quiet.”

  This Jo person seemed alright. If she insisted on defending Michael Rayton, Christine would need to stay on her guard, but if she stopped defending him they might get along.

  They crossed the lab and entered her makeshift office. It was, as Jo had said, away from prying eyes and the general hubbub of the lab. It would do nicely.

  Jo leaned against a filing cabinet. “What I’m about to tell you is a matter of national security.”

  “I’ve signed the Official Secrets Act. I’m cleared.”

  “Michael Rayton works for the CIA.”

  Christine’s butt hit her chair with a thump. “He works for K&P.”

  “Correct.”

  “And the CIA?”

  “Correct.”

  “That’s illegal.” Christine was incensed. “The CIA have no jurisdiction…”

  “Complicated subject,” said Jo. “I know you’re not comfortable with him, but I need him working with me on this. I have ruled no one in and no one out. He says he had nothing to do with the sabotage, if indeed this was a case of industrial sabotage, so until or unless I prove otherwise, he’s on the case. He has too much valuable insider information for me to exclude him entirely. I’ll be sure he tampers with nothing that might implicate himself and I’ll keep you in the loop at all times. How does that sound?”

  It sounded like she had been demoted and Jo had appointed herself boss. Christine took a deep breath. “My files are set to self-destruct if you don’t enter a password after a set period of time. After each time has elapsed, you require a new password. Are you ready?”

  Jo had a pencil and paper in hand.

  “The passwords are all lower case, no spaces. They’re comprised of a story about William, my cat.” She nodded at Fran who was hovering in the doorway. “We’re going to be a while, do you mind waiting?”

  “Not at all,” said Fran.

  Perhaps, when this was all settled, Fran would help her dig into Michael Rayton’s background and expose him for the abject liar he was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Barb could see Pete all the way in the back of the van, struggling with his seat belt. They’d only traveled two blocks and already he was fussing and fighting and acting like it was cutting off his airways. Why didn’t someone invent a seatbelt that didn’t dig into your neck, already?

  “You okay back there?”

  “It itches,” said Pete.

  “We’re traveling slowly enough that you don’t need to keep it on,” said Alice.

  Pete unlatched his seat belt and lay back, his head lolling slightly to the left.

  “Keep an eye on him,” said Barb. “He’s not looking good. I have a first aid kit, if you want to change his bandages.”

  Alice rummaged around in the travel bag until she found the kit. “I’m not sure there’s enough in here. Bill’s not doing well, either.”

  “We have a ton of supplies back at the apartment. Hang tight and I’ll get us there.”

  The ride back to the Avalond was uneventful. Barb scraped past a couple of vehicles, the metal on metal screeching loud enough to set KC to howling. That set Maggie-loo off and finally Mouse joined in. Barb smiled. It was almost like being on a road trip, but with sick people and noisy dogs. Still, she’d done what she’d promised and it felt good.

  “The cars look cleaner up here,” said Alice.

  What a
weird thing to say. The cars were abandoned and busted up and dinged and scratched in ways that would never be corrected, not even by the best bodyworker in the world given an infinite number of hours to fix the job. Barb had mashed half the vehicles in Manhattan in her attempt to get uptown without bypassing Bryant Park.

  “The paint is still good. Not sliding off, like it is further downtown.”

  Barb peeked under the blanket to make sure Charlotte was still sleeping. How lucky was she, to find a baby who loved to sleep? She’d been prepared, back when she was pregnant, for a couple of years of sleepless nights, but if the past 5 hours were anything to go by, she had hit the baby jackpot. “How do you mean, sliding off’” She hadn’t meant to ignore Alice. That would be rude. But the baby was so perfect it was impossible not to look at her.