The Effort

by Claire Holroyde

  “That leaves the population with subsistence fishing, hunting, and farming. Small scale. Nothing worth us stealing—”

  “You would steal from these starving people?” Amy growled.

  “The Effort would steal from anyone,” the doctor admitted. “We have the world’s brain trust on an ultimate mission, and the armies needed to protect them. That requires a lot of calories.”

  Dr. Clayton counted off the ravaging of local food sources by the French Guianese: cattle, pigs, and chickens had been slaughtered; capa, tapir, and monkeys in the bordering forest had all been shot and eaten; vegetable fields had been ripped up; savanna trees had been stripped of fruit.

  “Traditional fishermen are surviving,” she offered. “Well, as long as they can avoid getting killed for their catch. Our surveillance drones have spotted them hauling in crabs, prawns, and fish. Humanity hasn’t managed to plunder the bounty of the sea—just yet.”

  “How do you know all this?” Amy interrupted. “You’re just a psychiatrist. The logistics and administration teams don’t tell the rest of us anything.”

  Dr. Clayton maintained her calm and soft demeanor.

  “We inform members on other teams about the state of the world very minimally,” she agreed. “Lately, I’ve been the one who does the telling. In the past, when it wasn’t done by a professional, not enough was done to monitor the situation.”

  The doctor didn’t elaborate.

  “We don’t have food to spare,” Dr. Clayton said quickly, just as Amy pointed to the people outside the vehicle and opened her mouth, ready to yell. “But we do have enough fresh water. We used to set up dispensaries along the highway, but it attracted too many desperate people. There were organized attacks on our soldiers. After that, we stopped letting them get close. We drew the line—literally. Even so, we offer them protection,” Dr. Clayton added. “That’s why they gather at the line.”

  Amy looked to the psychiatrist and then at the SWAT commander.

  “Protection from what?” she asked.

  “From one another,” Zhen whispered. “That smell…”

  When she breathed through her nose, Zhen smelled fire-roasted pork. Amy must have been too upset to notice.

  “Yes,” the doctor said sadly. “We’re not the only ones doing the unthinkable. Our soldiers tried to bury the dead, but there were too many, and the bodies weren’t doing any good stuck in the ground.”

  So there was cannibalism among the starving masses. Cheung had said that it was happening back home in China, but here it was right beside them. The Effort was like a snow globe: an environment in a bubble that kept them all focused inward and oblivious to the horror on the other side.

  The locals grew more desperate as the convoy passed by. With hollowed eye sockets and dry mouths, people begged for help. But no help was coming. The Effort was hope for all humanity—but not for them. Zhen felt the first signs of fear as a sinking in her stomach. There were so many; they could overturn the Humvees and drag them all out through the windows if they acted together.

  A group of frightened children held hands as men pushed them from behind toward the road. Just as Zhen realized the ugly shock of children used as a human shield, the SWAT commander leaned back and assured the three women that they were safe. Ben had arranged for more air cover to protect the convoy. Amy stuttered in disbelief.

  “You’re not actually going to shoot—”

  The sound of a helicopter drowned out her words. Warning shots pelted the earth in staccato rhythm. The crowds scattered, screaming.

  “Jesus fuck!” Amy shouted. “Those are unarmed people! Children!”

  The doctor only spoke when the noise died down. She didn’t have a voice like Amy’s.

  “Our soldiers have been stoned to death. They’ve been beaten and ripped apart by mobs.”

  Amy opened her mouth, but Dr. Clayton kept talking.

  “Our orders are to protect this defense effort at all costs. Right now, that’s the two of you—and that airport.”

  She pointed to the road ahead, but Amy didn’t turn to face forward. Instead, she leaned over her lap and put her hands over her ears. Luckily, she didn’t see a young teenager break free from the line and run toward the convoy. The girl held her arms outstretched from a T-shirt whose silkscreen had faded to white. Zhen couldn’t hear what she was saying above all the voices yelling for her to stay back. Twenty feet from the highway, bullets burst into her chest cavity from a gunner just ahead. Just twenty feet, so close that Zhen could have thrown her a bottle of water, so close that Zhen could have done something to keep her alive and not a heap of skin and bones receding in the distance.

  Zhen heard Amy weeping into her lap. Zhen’s own ragged breaths came quick and shallow. Dr. Clayton fixed her steady, pale eyes on Zhen and spoke slowly.

  “We have the most important mission in the history of the planet.”

  Zhen understood.

  “Breathe.”

  Of course she understood, but what if it was all for nothing? What if the plane took off in the night, or what if the cargo was damaged? What if people were devolving back into wild animals and cold killers for nothing? Zhen lurched and vomited a stream of bile onto the doctor’s shoes.

  Soon as she stopped gagging, Zhen apologized.

  “I usually get it in my hair,” Dr. Clayton said, trying to smile.

  Their stone-faced driver leaned back briefly.

  “Go ahead and cry,” he told Zhen. “I do. When I’m not at the wheel.”

  Zhen wiped bile from her lips. French Guiana was not a densely populated region. What of the cities? What of the megacities of China where her parents and brother lived? What happened to the only people who ever loved her? Were they cut up into pieces and roasted on a spit, like a child’s nightmare?

  A helicopter made another low pass and shot up the ground ahead of them. Crowds of people ran from the road, trampling others who tripped or were pushed underfoot. One body didn’t move from the gunfire. It was an Asian man in a white lab coat smeared with dirt. Half his face was slack, like it was melting, and the other half was dazed and frightened.

  Zhen recognized Ts’ao Wu, the Chinese engineer who suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the Effort infirmary. Interpreters from the UN told the rest of the Chinese engineers that Wu had died in surgery. The Effort’s logistics team had already contacted the Chinese government and arranged for Cheung to replace him. Was Zhen seeing Wu’s ghost? Or was it that these crowds of people weren’t just the locals because the Effort was discharging its infirm—at the least. Instead of Wu, it could very well be Zhen abandoned out there. It might be yet, for who could not notice that the Effort stockpiles were depleting? Ground meat and fresh produce were used sparingly, barely enough for flavor. Engineers were no longer allowed to fill their plates. Rations were doled out carefully in single portions only.

  “Breathe,” Dr. Clayton prodded.

  Zhen lifted her gaze to the brightening expanse of sky and focused on the traffic control towers of the Cayenne airport. Her breathing eventually slowed into an even rhythm, but she didn’t take her eyes off those towers. She tried not to blink.

  * * *

  “WE’VE ARRIVED,” the SWAT commander said.

  Amy sniffed hard and sat up. Her face was red and slick with tears. When her eyes locked with Zhen’s, she nodded. It was time to actively forget the highway wasteland behind them. As Dr. Clayton said, they had their mission, and it was the only mission.

  The convoy passed through the Cayenne airport’s guarded gates and proceeded along the airfield perimeter. Gunners stood down and resealed their roof panels. Zhen saw that all the parallel runways were empty—except for the Chinese Xi’an Y-20 plane parked in the far corner, right where Zhen left it. She slapped one hand over her mouth to stop noises issuing from her lips. There it was in front of them; all was not lost.

  The Humvees parked in three rows starting at a fifty-meter distance from the plane. The SWAT commander handed
Zhen an extra pair of binoculars and told her to stay put as he exited the vehicle. Zhen had to shift to the middle, nearly in the tall doctor’s lap, in order to see the plane from their vehicle’s position in the middle of the third row. She counted sixteen Chinese soldiers in baggy uniforms trying to stand at attention with their rifles. As she was counting, two collapsed, and only one of those was able to struggle back up to his feet.

  More soldiers limped out of the plane’s hatch. There could still be a lot of them inside. The plane’s forty-seven-meter-long body with its extra-wide fuselage had a maximum cargo capacity of sixty-six tons. Its name translated to Chubby Girl in English. Zhen re-counted a total of twenty-three soldiers blocking her from the Tianlong inside. She would have them all shot if it came to that. But she hoped with all her heart that it wouldn’t. These soldiers were dying as they continued to hold their ground with complete selflessness for duty. How could she not be fiercely proud of her people?

  The SWAT commander returned to report that his snipers were all in position. Behind him stood eight of the Chinese engineers who had come to help. Zhen saw Cheung in the lead. Of all the UD3 catatonia cases that Zhen had seen, all had worsened rapidly. Yet, here was Cheung, suddenly clear-headed with purpose. Perhaps the afflicted had a path of return after all.

  When Zhen stepped out of her vehicle, the smell of roasting meat was twice as strong. It drew unbidden memories of her mother’s sizzling, spitting wok. Zhen felt her mouth fill with saliva. She heard a stomach gurgle and growl in anticipation but didn’t know if it was hers. Bodies want what they want.

  Zhen took off her sweaty helmet and politely ignored the SWAT commander’s protests. She wanted her face clearly visible as she approached the plane. Cheung took off his helmet as well. The soldiers wouldn’t recognize him. Cheung came to the Effort on a later flight, but he was still Han Chinese, the same blood and history. When Zhen took a few steps forward, Cheung was the only engineer who walked by her side. The rest fell behind.

  Amy tried to join the engineers, but Zhen shook her head.

  “But, if you need me—”

  Amy didn’t need to finish. The two women had already come so far by relying on each other’s help. And Zhen didn’t need to look up to see all the drones and helicopters that Ben had sent to protect them. She passed their moving shadows along the concrete of the runway.

  The helmets of the Chinese soldiers swiveled as they tried to keep track of all the SWAT soldiers, squatting behind the open doors of their Humvees, while keeping an eye on the small group advancing toward them. They were completely outgunned but stood their ground with their fingers on their triggers. Zhen whispered for Cheung to walk slowly and carefully.

  “Stop!”

  Zhen and her group halted. She followed her ears and recognized the Chinese major with embroidered stars on his shoulder insignias. He stood behind his men, closer to the plane’s hatch, yelling in English for all to hear. Zhen scanned the soldiers’ faces but didn’t see the loadmaster or the pilots. Hopefully, they were still inside the plane.

  A young, emaciated soldier dragged himself over to the group of engineers with his gun lowered but ready. He smelled like sweat and rot. Zhen greeted him, but he didn’t smile. The soldiers had all been quiet on the long journey to South America. They didn’t know about the Tianlong; they only knew the cargo was a state secret that could alter the fate of China.

  “We’ve received no word from Beijing,” the soldier reported to Cheung in Mandarin.

  The pilots had orders to turn on Chubby Girl’s systems once a day for communication back to command.

  “Fetch the loadmaster,” Zhen said to the soldier.

  No one moved. From the corner of Zhen’s vision, an engineer with the family name Bao walked up from behind to stand on her other side. Bao was a short man, and so he had to tilt his chin up to look the soldier square in the eyes and repeat Zhen’s command to fetch the loadmaster. The solider gave a look of wary relief before retreating; he must have known that all their waiting and suffering would be over, one way or another.

  The young solider conferred with his major. Together, they disappeared into the fat belly of the plane. When they reemerged, the loadmaster was with them. Zhen’s hands and feet started to twitch with nerves. The three men stopped about six meters from the group. The loadmaster looked between Zhen and the major, who had unholstered his gun.

  “Was that you who made the rainwater catchment?” Zhen called out to the loadmaster.

  She slowly pointed to the wing on the far side of the plane draped in tarps. The loadmaster had training as a mechanical engineer. On the voyage, he had good-naturedly teased Zhen about her pristine lab coat by showing off all the gear oil streaking his military uniform. He said that they needed to make a different kind of camouflage for the likes of him.

  The loadmaster nodded and stepped closer, closing half the distance between them. The major and his soldier crept closer as well.

  “You look strong,” Zhen said, noting the loadmaster’s strength in comparison.

  “We’re out of food.” He then admitted, “The last of it went to the major, the pilots, and me. You should have brought pork buns with you. It would’ve been polite.”

  When he smiled, his ashen lower lip cracked and bled. Zhen said that she had brought food, fresh water, two doctors, and four medics. She meant for her words to travel even as their temptation caused pain and trembling in the soldiers. The major’s stare turned colder.

  “I’ve thought about you,” the loadmaster said to Zhen, taking two steps closer, “while we were alone out here. Waiting.”

  His name was Dewei. Zhen wasn’t surprised that she stayed on his mind, just as he had stayed on hers. Theirs had been a quick kinship that didn’t come easily to Zhen. Dewei didn’t need to be kind to her—most didn’t and most weren’t. And yet, he showed her pictures of his young wife and infant daughter back in China and then asked about Zhen’s own family. They talked for the majority of the flight, stopping only to catnap and then start up again.

  Dewei didn’t mention the large containers he had to maneuver onto the plane, but he was brave and curious enough to ask about Zhen’s thoughts on the comet. The topic of UD3 had become taboo in much of China. Speaking its name invited unimaginable death and destruction into a conversation, but he still did it. And what’s more, he admitted he was scared for the future.

  “You must think of all children now,” Zhen told Dewei quietly. “Just as you think of your own daughter.”

  The suspicious major moved closer.

  “That cargo is a spacecraft,” Zhen said, raising her voice. “We need it to stop the comet. Unload it now.”

  Dewei nodded. This was the order he had waited for. As he turned, the major shouted again in English.

  “Stop!”

  The loadmaster held up his hands but spoke defiantly.

  “Whatever is in that plane, we need to give it to them. We need to end this.”

  The major yelled without taking his eyes off Zhen and the SWAT team.

  “We don’t have orders.”

  “And we never will,” Dewei insisted. “Give it to them.”

  More Chinese engineers flanked Zhen until they were all standing shoulder to shoulder. The major lifted his gun and pointed it at Dewei’s head, taking aim at the first detractor. A sniper bullet knocked the major off his feet before he could discharge his weapon. There was a moment of silence and indecision. Then one Chinese soldier set down his rifle. Then another. And another.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Weber’s Warning

  Healy in the Bering Sea

  December 9

  T-minus 54 days to launch

  JACK’S PARENTS INHABITED his dreams. He was usually lucid enough to know they were both probably dead—and Jack told them so. In some dreams, his mother and father nodded in sad agreement, but in others, they held out hope for their real selves. Jack woke one afternoon alone in Maya’s lower bunk. The memories of his dreams were alrea
dy fading, but he could still recall his mother pointing to the scar on his neck and asking, Remember Germany?

  Jack didn’t remember the military hospital in Landstuhl very well, but he did remember the stray piece of hot shrapnel in the Syrian city of Homs. Jack also remembered waking up on the flight to Bethesda Naval Hospital. His parents were beside him. They had immediately flown to Germany and then flown right back to the States forty-eight hours after their only child survived surgery for a nicked artery.

  When it was time to be released to a caregiver, Jack had no one but his mother; he had broken off his last relationship right before leaving on a dangerous assignment. Mrs. Campbell readied his old bedroom in their house back in northern Virginia. It was easy at first. Jack was foggy from pain medication, and his mother was gentle. When she spoon-fed him soup and antibiotic pills, Jack teared up with each painful swallow. He was still so close to death that she forgave him then.

  But the days passed and, by small degrees, their patience ran out. Mrs. Campbell filled the silence with talk of her familiars. Some of it was harmless enough: milestones like birth, marriage, and death. But that usually transitioned to gossip, judgment, and competition. Jack knew his mother hid pettiness behind good looks, charm, and polished manners. Others were easily fooled, while Jack saw the underlying comparisons over money, real estate, dress size, popularity, successful children, cruises, tennis—in fewer words, everything that Jack found superficial. Laid up inside the same four walls he thought he had escaped, Jack was his mother’s captive audience, just as in childhood before puberty stoked his fire and told him to get the hell gone.

  When it was time to peel away the surgical tape and remove Jack’s bandages, her fury percolated to the surface. Your father and I won’t always be around to take care of you, you know, his mother said, losing the smile she always wore like a favorite lipstick. You need to settle down with the right girl and a steady job that won’t keep trying to kill you. Jack balled his fists, but the fight left him soon as his mother broke down in tears at her first look at the jagged stitches, running from his collarbone to the corner of his jaw.