“Do you see any patterns?” he asked matter-of-factly.
“Should I?”
“Just watch them.”
She took a few minutes to study them. The zombies on patrol did move around to all parts of the room, but if they were making any patterns, she couldn’t see them. Sometimes the zombies would appear to stop, or make slow, deliberate reversals of direction, but as far as she could deduce, they weren’t doing anything in a pattern.
“I don’t see anything unusual, beyond zombies not attacking them.”
“Hmm. I’m disappointed. You seemed pretty sharp,” he said with mock sadness.
“Just tell me.”
He strode away from the door, heading back up the steps.
“This way, please. Keep up.”
In moments, back in the video room, Hayes keyed in some data and the room below appeared on the screen. The camera was on infrared, so the low light was not a factor.
The images were from a previous time frame. The tell was that the zombie at the door was walking the room, rather than looking for intruders.
“OK, watch again from this camera angle. You should see it.”
Minutes went by as she watched.
She tried to think of something to say that would sound intelligent, but by all appearances, the movements were completely random.
“Nothing?”
She remained silent.
“Let me speed it up.” He pressed some buttons, and the image sped into high gear. With the advantage of speed, the pattern became stunningly obvious.
“They always move to the same spots.”
“Exactly! Though the movements seem to be random, they spend extra time at a select few of the people. And what do you think they have in common? Take your time.”
She watched in awe as the pattern continued to scream at her. It was almost embarrassing that she’d missed it earlier. It was like the zombies hovered at those waypoints and either turned around or lingered just a bit longer than they should. But while pattern screamed at her now, she couldn’t deduce the point of commonality among those particular victims.
Thinking back to her day, she recalled the root cause of why those people were in the room in the first place. Something that might explain everything.
“They're infected?”
After a dramatic delay, Hayes looked at her and gave her the thumbs up sign. He was also transfixed by the pattern. Finally, he pulled himself away and looked at her. “Yes, sorry. You got that one right. High marks for you, after all. We’ve figured out that the docile zombies search out other zombies, but because they’re being affected by the trial vaccine, they seem to get confused when they run into them. That’s the hesitation you see. But, given enough time, say an entire night in a controlled environment, we can tell who has been infected.”
“But what does that prove? We already know who’s infected. Like, almost everyone!”
“Ah, but that’s the part you’re missing, here. Those people are infected with the virus, but they aren’t displaying symptoms. They’re carriers, but they don’t spread the disease in any way we can tell.”
“Typhoid Mary’s.”
“Yes, that’s an apt comparison, but Mary Mallon didn't care if she was infected. She knowingly spread Typhoid despite repeatedly causing death and destruction in her wake. These people have no way of knowing they were infected. We ask all kinds of questions when they were ‘volunteered’ for this quarantine system. We can’t find anything that ties them all together. Nothing that says how they were all infected.”
“Or why.”
“Yes, or why. But you can see our problem, can’t you? I mean humanity’s problem.”
She thought of all the people huddled together in the park, waiting as refugees for the world to recover so they could go back out and rebuild. Some percentage of them could already be infected, and no one in the world could pick them out of a crowd.
Except Hayes. That figures.
3
“So the whole thing with Grandma and the elderly people you killed was just a sideshow so you could walk these zombies among the living and find these carriers?”
“Oh, I wish it were that simple. And please, I didn’t kill them for sport. We were in crisis mode. We still are. No, I stumbled on this while developing the work on Marty’s blood. I injected her blood into a raving feral zombie, and the results are what you see on the screen. It appears to make the zombies docile and harmless. That’s a step in the right direction. With more blood, and more time, I think I could refine this and find the cure itself. But this side effect, this latent infection, troubles me more than words can say. It’s almost like the virus is fighting back. Like it knew I was close to a cure, so it has gone deeper to hide.”
“And the elderly?”
It was his turn to sigh long and loudly. “Those early days were the easy ones, I’m afraid. We had many willing volunteers in that critical age bracket. Men and women lining up to do their duty to find the cure and protect their loved ones. Make a difference, before they passed on. But now...”
He looked at her, remaining uncharacteristically serious. “Our half-dozen advanced medical facilities were once loaded with elderly patients, but some nitwit administrator kicked out everyone over seventy-five. Sent them home to die. They wanted to focus on those with better chances for survival.”
“Triage,” she said flatly.
“Yes. Exactly. But little did they know the cure could only come from someone over the age of 100. They literally chased off the people who could cure everyone.”
“You have some on this floor. I saw them. Surely you can find more elderly? Grandma Marty isn’t the only one to survive. There have to be hundreds in St. Louis, even now.” She and Liam had looked up the census data for age, and also found one centenarian practically around the corner. Hans Grubmeyer was 105. She held onto that piece of information, for now.
“As I said. The heady early days of gathering those people are gone. We have a few test subjects up here, but they are all spry eighty-year-olds. Anyone left alive today, of suitable age, is hunkered down in bunkers or other defensive strongholds with other survivors. They aren’t likely to come out so they can get involved in virus research.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you killed all your original test subjects?” She knew it was wrong to prod him, but she didn’t want him to forget that she knew what he did.
“You aren’t going to let it go, are you?”
“After you let us go to chase Duchesne, he almost killed us. A couple of times, in fact. But Liam, Grandma, and I were able to escape, and a barge ran him over and killed him—”
“He’s dead?”
“Oh, he’s dead,” she said with glee. The two weren’t friends, as best she could tell, but they knew each other. “And after we left—”
Hayes interrupted her. “Sorry. He’s dead?” he asked again with some skepticism.
“Yes, as a door nail, whatever that means.”
Hayes paced the small room, looking nervous.
“What’s the big deal? He was a real...jerk.”
“It’s not him. I was hoping you two would get away and that he would conduct his usual inept pursuit. If he’s gone, that means...”
“Wait a minute. You sent us out there knowing we’d get caught?”
“Well, I knew you’d stop at nothing to rescue Marty. Plus, I planned to help out a little. And yes, I assumed you’d get caught, but I also knew how resourceful you two kids were—Dutch thought you were beneath him. That’s why I figured he’d fail. I never imagined he'd let himself get killed by you two.”
“We didn’t kill him. He died while trying to kill us.”
“It doesn’t matter. This changes the whole scenario. For you, and—worse—for me.” He stopped pacing and seemed to ponder his next move.
“What’s the big deal? If he’s dead, we’re in the clear. No one can possibly know where we went. You didn’t know where we went, and y
ou still don’t know where Grandma is.”
And I’m less inclined to tell you now.
“The hierarchy of the NIS is very rigid. A lot of it is based on the oldest and best-bred families from around the world. Most of them immigrated here, to America, because of the endless opportunities for money and connections. But those families are all working together, and intermarriage is strictly controlled. The ultimate taboo is marrying outside approved families because that means the offending family member must be convinced to call it off by any means necessary, or the entire family of the outsider must be brought in. And that happens about as often as a sheep marries a fox.”
“So, let me guess. Duchesne had a wife.”
“Oh, it’s worse than that. He had a fiancée.”
4
“Sooo, this bad guy dies while trying to capture us, and his girlfriend is going to come and get revenge? While zombies are killing everyone. Seriously?”
“I know how it sounds, but these people spent their whole lives preparing for a very specific set of events. The woman in question, Ms. Elsa Cantwell, was a fitness champion in Iceland—where she grew up. She is a master of close quarters combat and has studied police and military reactions to mob violence and chaos—why do you think she did that?”
Victoria could guess, but he was on a roll.
“I’ll tell you. She was preparing herself for the extreme violence of the fall of man.”
He looked at her, seeming to want a response.
“And?” she said with a bit of impatience.
“And, the iron bitch was smitten by that asshole and his cowboy boots. They were both...” Hayes looked around the small room filled with video monitors as if deciding if any were pointed at them. “They were both going to have a prominent place in the new government. Their marriage would have bound their two families during the transitional period.”
“You know, the more you talk, the less I believe you. This sounds more like fairy tale material than real life.”
“Or any number of arranged marriages over the centuries in the monarchies of Europe.”
“Whoa? Are you saying this has been going on that long?”
“No, not at all. I’m saying that what I’m telling you is not that unusual. Powerful people work together. These are some very powerful people.”
Victoria felt the frustration. Here, in front of her, was a medical experiment showing some important keys to unlocking the virus—maybe finding a cure. And the one man who seemed to be at the forefront of the research was distracted by a revenge-seeking Icelandic woman. The world was upside down.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but why the hell should I care about Duchesne and his crazy girl? Though I don’t want to help you, specifically, I do want to help my fellow humans in getting a cure worked up. What I see here is an incredible advance toward that end. I want to...” she swallowed hard, emphasizing the pain in the words, “help you.”
“Ahh, my young friend. How I wish that were possible.”
“What? Why? The cure could be right here,” she pointed at the walking zombies.
“It probably is. But I have to leave. I should already be gone.”
“Why? What aren’t you telling me?”
Hayes grabbed a chair, spun it around, then sat on it so he was facing the wrong way. He used the wooden back to support his crossed arms.
“When Janey and I left the Riverside Hotel in our helicopter, we could have gone anywhere. We probably should have gone and found a quiet forest and hunkered down until the end. Instead, we came here. My sources said the hospitals in this area had managed to hold things together, and the research at the University continued throughout the disaster. The community came together, where most others broke apart. Well, you saw what it was like downtown. Total chaos.”
She nodded.
“I had Marty’s blood. I had a responsibility to at least look at it. This was the only place I could go,” he said quietly.
“We figured you were going to Washington, D.C. to give it to the President, or something,” she said with a slight laugh.
“Yeah, I guess I came across that way. But blood wouldn’t have lasted that long. So we flew here. I was lucky that Federal authorities were already working with the locals, and I was able to insert myself into their org chart. Walk in with blood and a lab coat and you’ll be golden,” he said with his usual charm.
He nervously tapped his fingers on his elbows on the back of the chair. “That arrangement lasted all this time. Because I happen to be a real immunologist, and I do know a lot about how this disease was created,” he tapped his nose. “I was able to run this place after a few days. It helped that lots of the medical staff melted away. Pretty much only the foreign educators and grad students stuck around. The administrators running the refugee camp eventually put me in charge of all medical research at the university. And we made great progress. Finally.”
“But?”
If you tell me this is all going to be ruined because of a jilted lover, I’m going to scream.
“I did something bad.”
She pursed her lips with a painful look on her face. Like she’d just watched a figure skater do a Triple Axel and land in the stands.
“Yes, it's true. And you’re going to hate me for this. I couldn’t give them my real name when I came here. Remember, I was part of the NIS organization. They know everything about me, though I may have tinkered with my DNA tracker code,” he giggled. “But I assumed with all the other problems they’ve got going on, it would be a long time before they had a free hand to go searching for me. I helped you guys along by killing Duchesne’s men, and I figured you’d gotten away clean when I saw you coming back across the wreck on the river. I didn’t realize you’d—I didn’t realize he’d died. I might have done things differently.”
“Why? What name did you use?”
“Sam Stevens.”
She’d heard the name before, but she couldn’t place it. Her face said as much.
“You kids have the worst memory. Too many video games.”
“I don’t play—”
“I’m kidding. Geez. That’s the name Liam gave to Duchesne when he was trying to trick him. Dutch told me the story as you guys were coming up into the hotel. While we were...administering to Grandma Marty.”
“Infecting her,” she said, to clarify.
“Well, when we got here I needed a name, and I thought it would be funny to assume a name created by my favorite teen thorn in my side, Liam.”
“I still don’t get it. If it’s a fake name, how would anyone find you? Like, ever?”
Hayes spoke fast. “Victoria, listen. When Liam gave Dutch that fake name, it was associated with a photograph taken on that interchange back in the early days. Back when you refused my assistance, the first time,” he said pointedly. Before she could protest, he held up his hand so he could continue. “The name was associated with the face, and eventually, when they figured out Sam was actually Liam, it became a known alias. Duchesne was last seen with two teens and myself and my wife after a major battle with the Marines and Army units. She’s going to be looking for all of us. And it won’t take her long to plug in the pseudonym and find out that person is doing scientific heavy lifting here at the university. I doubt she’ll be fooled into believing Liam is the scientist,” he said with a laugh.
Victoria tried to piece together the timeline. Keeping track of time was very difficult when the rhythm of the days and weeks was upset so completely. “That was over a week ago. Wouldn’t she be here seeking her revenge, by now?”
“Ah yeah, that’s just it. I was able to keep my identity a secret up until today. I’ve been ‘Doctor Stevens’ to all the people here in this building. Very simple, right? Could be anyone, right?”
She nodded.
“But this afternoon the head cheese came here and wanted me to fill out a W-4!”
He’d been waiting for a different reaction than the blank look she gave him.
“Tax forms. He wanted to make sure I filled out the proper paperwork so the government could pay me. Can you believe that?” He paused, seeing it still wasn’t registering. “So, I filled out the form with the full name. Sam Stevens suddenly existed in the Federal data warehouse. A hit showed up on a running search on a computer and Elsa ran to the nearest helicopter for St. Louis with her strike team.”
“How can you be so sure? I thought the government was supposed to be inept, and everything takes forever? You probably have weeks before they figure it out. You should stay and finish your research.”
“Nope. It was keyed in, and she got it, almost in real time. I know because I know how the NIS operates. They’ll be here.”
“But how can you be sure,” she repeated in almost a whisper.
“Because there is one thing you never want to do when you're working with someone who operates at routine peak efficiency: underestimate them. The second you let your guard down, there they are. Elsa is the kind of woman who does push-ups in her sleep. Running a search of the Federal database for select keywords is probably how she relaxes. You can’t assume she’s anything but top notch.”
So, this is about a jilted lover.
She considered screaming as she promised but heeded Hayes’ advice. Elsa could be outside the door, listening for her.
5
“So what are you going to do?” Victoria asked.
“Me? Don’t you mean us? If she’s coming, she’s coming for all of us. I blew it for you two. I admit that, and maybe I’m sorry. But you and Liam are on her radar, too. Probably more than me since you were there when he...died.”
“Why do you keep saying it like that? Oh, I don’t care. How the heck can she possibly know where me and Liam are?”
“Sam Stevens is here. Liam’s alias. She’ll know it isn’t him, but she’ll be looking for him in the area. And Victoria Hennessey, resident of a dorm very close to the building where Douglas Hayes was moonlighting as a researcher. I erased the video of your room—I promise—but how many of these other cameras do you think you’ve been on? Cameras in the hospitals. Have you been in the hospitals?” he asked with recrimination.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 153