He looked directly at Victoria. “Our best guess is that just as the clone flu was affected by the Quantum Virus, the clone flu also affected the Quantum. They work together.” With a fake laugh he said, “When flu season comes around again, we're going to have a doozie.”
Victoria shook her head in disbelief.
Liam listened in rapt silence. He was finally getting his answers. He was dismayed to realize they weren't what he expected. No secret cures were out there. These are the men who would know. And Hayes had been fighting the virus all along. He had difficulty squaring that with the sight of him trying to kill Victoria. Was he himself responsible for hindering Hayes in the discovery of a cure? Something more was going on. One phrase was festooned with neon lights in his head from Hayes' explanation.
“Our virus.” He spoke it out loud, quietly. “You said, it was 'our virus', didn't you? You made the clone.” He pointed at him.
Hayes was good at pretending to be sheepish. Liam had seen it before. This time, his embarrassed look was completely authentic.
“I'm afraid that's true. I helped make it.”
Chapter 13: Patriot Snowball
“Now we're getting somewhere.” Duchesne seemed to enjoy Hayes' forced admissions. Liam's questions stacked up in his head.
Before he could ask, another NIS contractor walked in the room.
“The charges are set, sir.”
Liam turned, thinking the voice was familiar, but he didn't recognize her.
“Excellent. Grab these guns,” he pointed to Liam and Victoria's guns on the floor, “put them somewhere safe. Then just wait outside. We're almost ready.” He turned to Hayes. “I'm in a hurry. Tell these kids about their Snowballer Grandma and we'll move on to the next order of business.”
Liam involuntarily gulped. He knew this wasn't going to end well. But, he was also terminally curious.
“Liam, surely you've heard of the Patriot Snowball, right?”
“No, why?”
Both men looked at him like he was telling a lie.
“Seriously? That's impossible. Don't you read the news? Watch the news? Anything?”
He was reminded of a similar conversation on the day of the sirens. The librarian seemed incredulous he didn't follow the news in any form or fashion.
“Look guys, I don't read the news, I don't watch the news, I don't do squat with news. Just tell me already!”
Hayes laughed despite himself. “Well, you continue to amaze. I thought you of all people might have guessed what this was all about. Your Grandma Rose never told you?”
“Intel said she never contacted any of the family. She went completely off the grid,” Duchesne stated matter-of-factly.
“Well there you have it. Your Grandma started the whole snowball rolling toward Washington D.C. and she was never heard from again. Still not ringing any bells?”
Liam searched his memory. Surely he'd remember his own Grandma Rose—she was Great-Grandma Marty's daughter-in-law—doing something to bring down the government. But he drew blanks. His only interactions with her in the past six months were getting a Christmas card with a crisp hundred-dollar bill as per usual, and then hearing his dad and Grandma Marty talking on the phone and mentioning Rose's name. That was once.
“I have no idea what you're talking about.” He looked at Victoria, but she also had no sign of recognition on her face.
“Neither of you kids know what's happening in your own world? Wow.”
Hayes sounded condescending, and Liam felt his hackles rising.
“Are you going to tell us or not?”
Duchesne laughed.
Hayes was a little more measured. “OK, after the President was sworn in back in January a movement of malcontents popped up out in Colorado—surely you know your Grandma was a congressperson from Colorado?” He waited to see Liam nod in the affirmative. “The movement started as a highway blockage, holding signs and complaining about crooked politics. They wrecked traffic in the entire city for a full day. When they broke up, a small cadre of people—they called themselves patriots—began walking toward D.C. with the express intent of overthrowing what they called the illegitimate government. They refused to follow an anti-American President.”
Hayes watched for signs of recognition on Liam's face, but Liam had none to give. He shook his head and continued his story.
“The protesters regrouped at Liberty, Missouri, stating their cause was Liberty itself. Many more joined up. They continued walking east through the winter and into the spring. They got into Ohio and Rose herself appeared at the head of the column. She made a plea, or threat depending on your point of view, stating that any of her fellow congresspeople who abandoned the corrupt government and joined her would not be run out on a rail when she arrived. No one joined her, but the people loved her. More and more patriots began to follow her as the spring arrived and the weather got better. The joke in the news was that her cause was growing like a snowball. They named their march the Patriot Snowball. And it was rolling right for the seat of the most powerful government in human history.”
“Dutch, you want to take it from your end?”
“Sure, partner.” He laughed. “I take my orders directly from...the top. Sometimes things need to be done outside the law, you know? My bosses wanted the problem—gone. I warned Rose privately what was heading her way, but she never took me seriously. One day—poof—she disappeared. She escaped us.” He let out a fake sigh. “Still, a warning without consequences is worth nothing, so we expanded the order. We jobbed up a list of Rose's family members—every...single...one—and got to work eliminating them. A small price to pay for threatening Uncle Sam, don't you think?”
Liam finally found his bad guy. He was too exhausted to summon the anger he knew he deserved.
“The Snowballers marched on to Washington and actually made it into the White House, can you believe it? The damned secret service wouldn't protect him against his own constituents. But he got the last laugh. He unleashed the plague on them—he thought it would be cleaner than nuking them. Hayes was busy in his government lab building his Frankenstein when the call from the President came in, and to his credit, he did his duty and released it upon the world. The President put a bullet in his mouth when the dolt realized it was much more destructive than Doc H and his friends said it would be. I guess the old Socialist won in the end. We're all equal in the eyes of the infected.”
Another laugh.
“For my part, I had teams out sweeping for your family when the balloon went up. We never found Rose, bless her heart, but we did manage to get a team on your Marty here. Funny thing, too, my report said the agents released a zombie which attacked her private nurse, Angie I believe, who then went in and killed Martinnette Peters. The report said she was dead. That might have been the end of the story, and we'd have never known, but her name showed up as 'alive' when Hayes entered her information into his reports from under the Arch. Can you imagine the good luck? I sent two agents to check her house to find out why the paperwork was falsified, and they reported her body was gone. Somehow she escaped an infected right in her own home. I wish she were awake so I could congratulate her.”
He bent over Grandma and shouted at her, “Are you awake?” She didn't stir.
Liam knew she had survived because she ran outside her house to escape the sick nurse.
Seemingly satisfied, the agent continued. “Hayes said he was keeping an eye on her for his research, but we were keeping an eye on her, too. It was only after your name came up when I took your picture on the bridge overpass—Mr. Sam Stevens—we put it all together how she got away and where she was going. From there, we tried bombing her, we asked the Marines to grab her, and we even embedded some Special Forces guys into a small group of troublemakers straight out of Mad Max to liquidate her in her Boy Scout tent. In the end, it was Doug who brought her to us.”
“Not to you.”
“Well, it's the same thing.”
“If the President'
s dead, why are you still following his orders?”
Duchesne looked at Victoria. “You really think the President is the only one in charge? There are over 500 representatives in the halls of power, not to mention scores of judges, generals, and powerful executives in the defense industry all willing to do anything to protect their way of life. They're probably all sitting in their bunkers somewhere, just waiting for their fresh start. The government is going to go on, plague or no plague. My mission doesn't stop just because a few of them are dead, or because things are bitey out in the world. We each have our parts to play. Mine is to terminate troublemakers with professional efficiency. Hayes' is to ensure the plague wipes out the malcontent citizenry. I think he's done a fine job, don't you?”
Yes, bully for him.
2
Grandma was with Al. She was also asleep in the room with everyone standing around her—she could hear them if she focused on their voices—but she was in a dark space, standing outside the door she'd seen before in this place.
“Hello, Marty. Are you ready to open this door?”
She looked inside. The huge ugly computer was still sitting on the wooden table, just as it was on a prior visit. Al called it an 8088.
“What's changed? Why will I be able to open it now?”
“Ah, an excellent question. And one for which you deserve an answer. Walk with me a minute.”
Al turned from the door and strolled away. The darkness fell back as if it were smoke, and she could see a whole universe of stars above her, just as she had before. He took her out into the open space near the foot of the waterfall.
“Yes, prior visits I showed you what I needed to show you. This time, you will see it all. Or as much as human eyes can see.”
As she came out of the darkness she was overcome with emotion at the scale and beauty of this “Heaven” as she understood it. Where once there was one bright waterfall pouring into a pool ensconced in a picturesque patch of grass and flowers, now there were separate and distinct waterfalls of all sizes and shapes stretching off to the horizon in on either side of her. They glowed like beacons in the night. It was hard to see the darkened land behind the waterfalls, but each had a middle landing like the one on which she was standing. From there, a second shorter waterfall spilled from the landing down to a choppy sea—which also stretched in both directions as well as directly away from them to the horizons. Above it all were stars. An impossible number of stars. So many that the whole scene was well lit by them.
It took Marty's breath away. She stumbled and felt the desire to sit. A rocky bench was off to one side, and she sat heavily and faced the waterfalls along the coast to her left, away from her own. Away from Al.
“Is this really Heaven?”
“This isn't your Heaven, I'm sorry to say. This is the multiverse. Mind you, this is still an internalized representation your mind can accept. But it's a grand reflection of reality I must admit. Your brain truly is a wonderful place.”
“This—is real? Not just in my head?”
“Yes my dear. Each waterfall is a completely separate universe. Each waterfall has its own rules. Is run by its own caretaker. Some are young and fresh. Others are more mature. We meet at homeowners’ meetings and have tea.”
She turned around and gave him her best stink eye.
With a curt laugh, he said, “I'm sorry, Marty. I don't want you to get too taken with what you see here. Some people can't handle it.”
“Others come here?”
He smiled. “Let's talk about you coming here.”
“All right,” she said as she looked back to the coastline, “do all the waterfalls drain into this ocean?”
“Yes, all roads lead to the ocean, if you will allow me to mix metaphors. And this ocean gives back to all the waterfalls in ways that are hard to describe with simple words. The ocean is the engine which drives the universes. Perhaps if you observe for a while, you will see.”
Marty sat there for a time. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she became aware of flashes of light under the water of the ocean. At times, bright and moving, as if lightning was striking under the surface. Sometimes a dim explosion of brightness seemed to encompass the entire ocean at once. It was impossible to see any patterns, but she was content to say she saw the lights. The energy flashes made the water appear as a deep translucent green color.
“It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, Al. Or whoever you are. Thank you for showing this to me.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, as it became too much to take in. Between the infinity of stars above, and depth of the sea below, it defied description.
“Please Marty, don't be upset by what I'm showing you. Take solace that you are only seeing a tiny fraction of this shoreline. It goes on in each direction, pretty much forever. Your mind couldn't handle seeing more of it at one time.”
He sat next to her and changed tact. “You've succeeded, Marty. You, Liam, and Victoria were able to work together to get you here. To talk to me. The final piece is to get inside that door back there.”
“It isn't really a door, is it?”
“You're catching on. The door represents something blocking you from doing what you need to do. The computer is the answer to your problem. A problem that should be fixed as soon as possible.”
“What problem? And why the delay? Why not tell me this two weeks ago?”
“The balance is delicate, my dear. Zombies roam your world with impunity. Bad men are hastening your collective destruction. Each minute lost is irreplaceable. But as I've said before, the answer must come from you, not me.”
Marty sighed. Every visit to this place was more frustrating than the last. She'd seen Liam's memory from one of his books—”
“The book was Earth Abides. It's one of Liam's favorites. You'll have to ask him why it's so important to him.”
“And why show me Victoria's death?”
“I think you already know that. Your memory of your own daughter's death those many years ago is a big reason why you and Victoria bonded. That, and Liam liked her.” He laughed. “All right, that was probably a big part of why you all bonded.”
Marty searched her feelings. The dream she'd seen had indeed shown her a memory from her own deep past—one she'd like to forget. When she was a young girl, freshly married, she got into a car accident in which her young daughter died. It was something she had tried to forget for over eighty years, though every day she thought about her. Of course meeting a young girl named Victoria would affect her judgment.
“Did you put her there, Al? Victoria, I mean. Put her under that tree that day?”
He smiled, but said nothing.
“And when I saw her in the backseat of that SUV. I saw—”
“Yes, you carry your painful memory and she carries hers. She was assaulted by her fiancé—a real dirtbag as she discovered—just after they were engaged to be married. That's what drove her to leave Colorado and go to St. Louis. But the pain was fresh when you first met her. I think you and Liam saved her in more ways than one.”
So many questions.
“What about when I saw her in that dark alley? She left a friend behind. She was about to be bitten.”
Al took a long time to reply. “Not every vision is an exact representation of reality. She may not have been bitten when she ran that night, but she wishes she was. That's what she sees when she dreams of her escape.”
“Oh my. Poor girl.”
Victoria had told her and Liam she ran all night to escape the zombies in downtown St. Louis. It made sense if she imagined herself getting caught, it would be while leaving a friend behind.
“Al, please tell me. How will this help any of us in curing the plague?”
Al smiled. “That, my dear Martinette, is the right question, at the right time, for the right person. Come with me and I'll show you.”
They stood up, striding for the window.
3
“That's not true. Liam, I admit I released the original virus
, but you have to believe me when I say I never intended for it to be this effective. I'm really trying to reverse it.”
“You're doing a piss poor job of it. That's why I'm here to clean up your mess. Get this research,” Duchesne nodded to the bed, “to the fortress over in Illinois where some real scientists can look at the data.”
Hayes seemed beaten. It was a look Liam had never seen, for real anyway. He feigned it several times.
“Is there rescue over in Illinois? Can we all go to the fortress?”
“Well, little lady, what do you think? Do you think the government is just sitting out there somewhere in a bunker just waiting for its citizens to show up so it can feed and clothe them in this time of need? Is that really your view of what the Federal government is for?”
“I always just thought...you know, they'd want to help out.”
“There's a fortress all right. And the US of A Army is parked there right now with its tanks and Humvees and every weapon you can think of pointed outside their walls at all the fine citizens that stumble their direction. Living or dead, it don't matter in the least. The whole city of Chicago must have gotten a memo because the dead are stacked ten-deep in the fields north of the fort. They built it too close to population if you ask me.”
He turned to face her. “And no, you can't go there. They don't let in just anyone.”
Duchesne leaned over Grandma, checking to see if she was awake.
Or alive.
The thought prompted him to ask. “Is she doing OK? Why isn't she waking up?” He felt his heartbeat downshift and start to spin wildly.
“Liam, that's an excellent question. But before I tell you, I need to give you something.”
It happened so fast Liam could only reconstruct it after the fact. In one fluid motion, Duchesne sidestepped along the bed and swung his fist. He connected with his stomach, sending him to the floor. When he was down, the agent kicked him hard in the face. He missed connecting with his nose by a couple inches, but the sole of his foot scraped painfully across his cheek. He stayed down, hoping that was all.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 79