Dogs of War

by Jonathan Maberry

  Cole thought about it. “Gorgon. From gorgo, the Greek word for terrible. What do you think?”

  “Nice,” said Bunny. “Scary and kind of sexy, if I can say that without getting my ass kicked.”

  “As long as you don’t get grabby, big boy, you can say what you like.”

  And Gorgon it was.

  They were parked around a curve in the street, but Lydia Rose had deployed a couple of bird drones to scout the location. The cameras showed the guard staff putting on Kevlar vests and distributing long guns instead of relying on sidearms.

  “They know we’re here,” said Cole.

  “I don’t think so,” said Top. “I think they just got put on high alert, which means they’re about to make their big play.”

  He ordered Lydia Rose to send that information to the TOC and all active operators. The alert would ripple out to the White House, the Joint Chiefs and the military, and to all levels of law-enforcement and disaster response.

  Bunny wiped sweat from his face. “Jesus God … does that mean they’re releasing the plagues?”

  “I don’t know, Farm Boy, but what it tells me is that we have to get into that house and stop that crazy bitch right damn now.”

  “Call the play,” said Cole. “Do we try going over the wall? I saw a weak spot to the south and—”

  “Fuck the wall,” Top growled, then turned to Lydia Rose. “Crazy Panda, you know how to work all the toys?”

  “You know how to jerk off with either hand?” she fired back.

  “Take that as a yes. Okay, I want a hole that we can drive through.”

  “You want just the hole or you want me to actually drive through it?”

  “What do you think, woman?”

  Lydia Rose laughed out loud, and Cole gave her a look as if wondering if the “crazy” part of her call sign was more than a nickname.

  The Junkyard’s engine roared and the big machine swung around in the turnaround at the end of a cul-de-sac, and then Lydia Rose floored it as she rounded the curve. The big estate loomed before them with its stout walls and armed guards.

  “Fire in the hole!” she yelled, and punched buttons on the steering column. Cole heard a whoosh from either side of the big vehicle and then saw smoke trails converging on the wall. Suddenly the day was ruptured by an enormous fireball that picked up huge chunks of stone and wrought iron and flung them three hundred feet into the air. Cole saw two security guards flying, too, their bodies twisted and wreathed with flame. And then the Junkyard punched through the pall of smoke.

  There was an almost immediate chatter of gunfire as other guards shook off their shock and opened up on the Junkyard. The bullets chipped at the paint but flattened against the thick body armor.

  Lydia Rose steered with her left hand and took the joystick with her right, thumbing off the safety cover to expose a trigger. A split second later, the roar of two twenty-four-millimeter Bushmaster chain guns filled the air and the guards went dancing and twitching away in clouds of crimson mist.

  Cole said, “Holy shit.”

  “Welcome to the war,” said Top as he slapped a magazine into his rifle.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN

  THE DOG PARK

  WASHINGTON STATE

  TUESDAY, MAY 2, 11:49 AM

  It was nearly impossible to keep order in the room. Too many people were shocked and scared. They had families, here in America and elsewhere. Many of them had come from lower-income areas, even from poverty-stricken areas, because genius, like integrity, artistic ability, and other great qualities, does not belong to a social class, an economic group, or a nation. They’re people who have the potential to rise, to become their best selves, to listen closely to what their better angels have to say.

  Ram Acharya came over and pulled me aside, hammering me with questions.

  “Why the hell didn’t you call me at once?” he growled. “I mean, before you went to Baltimore? When you got back from Prague? Why didn’t you call me about the girl who died?”

  “Because,” I said, leaning close to be heard above the noise, “DARPA has kept you guys in a cone of silence. They weren’t letting any messages get to you.”

  He looked puzzled. “I … I don’t understand. Why not? We’re just out here testing prototypes. There’s nothing special about—”

  And suddenly Aunt Sallie’s voice was in my ear. I covered my other ear so that I could hear what she said. After a few seconds, though, I knew that it was nothing I wanted to hear.

  It was everywhere. The world was blowing itself apart. Pigeon drones packed with high explosives were detonating all over. Tens of thousands of them, damaging buildings and equipment, but not specifically targeting people. I could understand the logic. It was setting the stage for the release of the pathogens. They didn’t want emergency services to get in front of any outbreak. It was a whole new level of clever cruelty. Logical but with such a blackness where compassion should be. Fires were already raging.

  Another wave of drones were dive-bombing military bases around the world. Small drones, the kind that anti-aircraft defenses have a hard time stopping. It was like trying to swat flies with a baseball bat. The drones struck control towers on airfields or blew holes in runways. Robot dogs carrying heavier bombs ran down the steps of subways or galloped into commuter tunnels and exploded. Bridges, tunnels, major highways, airports—all struck within minutes of one another. The vastness of the attack and the precision of its release was astonishing. It spoke to the years of planning that had gone into this; it spoke to the calculating minds that had paid so much attention to detail.

  But there were no reports of infections, Auntie said. Not yet.

  That should have been a comfort, but somehow it wasn’t.

  Church’s plane was about to land at the joint-use base, and then he was going directly to Zephyr Bain’s house. Top and his team were about to hit that location.

  There was also a new report of a wave of insects sweeping out of the sewers and drains around the White House and the Capitol. Tens of thousands of roaches that were bright green or orange or red instead of black or brown. The Secret Service had no response for it, and it took too long for them to understand what they were seeing. The true realization came when the swarm swept across the Rose Garden toward the Oval Office. And exploded. The roaches reached the Senate floor before they detonated. In a matter of seconds, the entire operating structure of the United States government was torn apart. By robots, by drones.

  Bang.

  Done.

  I stood there, my heart turned to ice in my chest, as Auntie hit me over and over and over with the news.

  “Is the president still alive?” I asked.

  Acharya, who wasn’t wearing an earbud, stiffened, his eyes snapping wide.

  “Unknown at this time,” said Auntie.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “Answers, Ledger. So far, the pathogens haven’t been triggered. We don’t know why, or if there’s a technical glitch at their end or it’s the other shoe waiting to drop. In any case, the people most qualified to come up with an answer are in that camp with you. Get your ass in gear. Tell them what’s going on. Work this, damn it. We need a response before the world falls off its hinges. We’re having our own problems here, so you’re on your own. Do this.”

  “On it,” I said, and turned to Acharya. “Doc, the shit’s hitting the fan and—”

  And Dr. Acharya launched himself at me, eyes wild, teeth snapping.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE

  THE HANGAR

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

  TUESDAY, MAY 2, 2:56 PM EASTERN TIME

  “It stopped,” said Aunt Sallie. She still held the mic she had been using to call Ledger, but her eyes were locked on the screen. The message about love had repeated thousands of times and then vanished. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” protested Bug. “It just stopped.”

  “Well, damn it, do something.”
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  “I am,” said Bug under his breath as his fingers flew over the keys. Behind and around him, the massive monstrosity that was the MindReader quantum computer system thrummed with energy.

  To Bug, it was as if the dragon had finally fully awakened.

  Suddenly all the screens went dark and the technicians in the Tactical Operations Center froze, eyes staring, fingers poised above inert keyboards. Then a light pulsed in the center of each screen. There and gone.

  Again.

  There and gone.

  Silence owned the room for the space of a single heartbeat.

  And then words began filling the screen:

  Save my soul!

  Save my soul!

  Save my soul!

  Save my soul!

  Save my soul!

  Save my soul!

  Those three words scrolled up the screens almost too fast to be read, and then accelerated until they became a blur. Finally, the speed was so fast that the screens flared with blinding white light.

  And then darkness again.

  “Bug…?” whispered Auntie. “What the—?”

  Instantly, fragments of code flashed onto the screen. Binary and other forms. Old computer languages and exotic forms the technicians had never seen before. Bug recognized some of it, or thought he did, as it flashed there and was gone.

  “Bug!” snapped Auntie. “Do we have to shut MindReader down?” There was panic in her voice.

  “No,” he said. “That’s not MindReader. It’s not quantum computer language.”

  “Then what the hell is it?”

  “It’s Good Sister,” said Bug, getting it now. Finally understanding, feeling the pieces of this part of the puzzle all snap together. “Good Sister is a computer.”

  The scrolling stopped with the abruptness of a slap.

  Nothing.

  And then …

  I am awake.

  I am alive.

  I am in hell.

  Save me.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN

  THE DOG PARK

  WASHINGTON STATE

  TUESDAY, MAY 2, 11:57 AM

  It all went to hell right then and there.

  Ram Acharya lunged at me, slashing with his fingernails and trying, all at once, to grab, tear, and bite. I jerked sideways and slap-parried his reaching hands and then knocked him away with a flat-footed kick to the hip. He crashed into two other scientists. They turned on each other, snarling and biting.

  Like dogs.

  God Almighty.

  I heard Rudy yell and Ghost begin barking furiously, and I whipped around to see them retreating into a corner. Rudy held a metal folding chair, and Ghost was lunging in to snap at fingers and groins. Panic flared in my chest. Not for Ghost, because he had all his rabies shots, but for Rudy. Inoculations wouldn’t save him. It wouldn’t save any of us.

  Within seconds the place had turned into a killing floor. Every scientist in the tent had turned savage. Every single one. The very specific people who were most likely to help us understand what was happening. The brilliant minds who could maybe save the world from the plan cooked up by Zephyr Bain and Nicodemus.

  Our actual last, best hope.

  Now they were tearing one another apart as the disease hidden in their blood and tissues was triggered by nanites implanted in them. I understood now why Major Schellinger had been smiling. She knew this was going to happen. She was in the pocket of Zephyr Bain. An employee or an ally. Or whatever. That didn’t matter anymore, because I realized that this had all been a nicely baited trap. My intention of coming to the DARPA camp had been in the MindReader data files before Bug took the old system offline. The importance of Dr. Acharya and these other men and women had been crucial. How many times had I communicated with Church or Auntie that I was coming out here?

  Now here I was.

  With no combat team. With Rudy, who wasn’t a soldier.

  Me and Ghost.

  Not enough.

  Not nearly enough.

  That was my thought as the wave of rabid killers swarmed toward me.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN

  JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL

  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

  TUESDAY, MAY 2, 2:58 PM EASTERN TIME

  The pigeon launched itself from the edge of the roof as soon as the ambulance came wailing toward the emergency-room entrance. The bird circled once and then swooped low, racing the truck, passing it, flying straight at the heavy reinforced-glass doors.

  The security guard looked up as the bird flew past him. He had time to say one word.

  “Jesus!”

  And then the bird struck the glass.

  The explosion turned the doors into whirlwinds of glittering splinters that tore the guard to rags and slashed at the people crowding the waiting room.

  A moment later the heavy ambulance smashed through the fiery wreckage, turned, skidded sideways, and crunched against the nurse’s station, driving it back against the wall, killing two nurses, and crushing the legs of another. Screams of pain and fear filled the air, rising to shocking clarity as the echoes of blast and crash dwindled.

  Then the rear door of the ambulance opened and men poured out. Six of them, dressed for combat and carrying assault rifles. And something leaped out with them. It ran on four legs, but its hide gleamed with a metallic sheen. It moved with oiled speed, first racing to catch up with the men and then outpacing them. The men followed it into a stairwell and up three flights, and when they burst out onto the floor the men opened fire.

  So did the WarDog. Heavy-caliber rounds tore through everything and everyone in the hall. A female doctor heard the commotion and leaned out of Lefty Ledger’s room and was instantly punched back against the doorframe, her lab coat puffing and popping as the rounds chopped into her.

  Outside, the driver and two other soldiers guarded the truck and listened to the music of slaughter echoing from inside.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN

  THE BAIN ESTATE

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  TUESDAY, MAY 2, 11:59 AM

  The Junkyard made it all the way to the front doors of the house before continuous gunfire ripped away enough of the tough rubber to send the big RV skidding on bare wheels. Bullets continued to hammer the hull, but the chain guns were on continuous feed and the barrel turned, guided by sensors, to find sources of active gunfire and responding with a belt-fed barrage. Shrubs and trees disintegrated into storm clouds of shredded leaf and bark and gooey sap, and, in the midst of that storm, scarecrow shapes danced, weapons falling from their hands, Kevlar body armor made futile by armor-piercing rounds.

  “Go, go go!” yelled Top as he kicked open the back door. He led the charge, with Cole behind him and Bunny guarding their backs with a drum-fed AA-12 shotgun. Bunny slammed the door shut to keep Lydia Rose safe inside the armored hulk of the Junkyard, and she kept up covering fire with the powerful Bushmaster autocannons. The guards at the Bain estate had been prepared, but not for all-out war.

  Or so Top and Bunny thought.

  A siren began wailing atop the house, and the guards stopped firing and fled. They ran for the walls and began to scramble up. Fleeing in absolute panic.

  “Uh-oh,” said Bunny. “That can’t be good.”

  It wasn’t.

  There was a sound that wasn’t a roar. Not exactly. It was too unnatural for that, too mechanical. It was a kind of harsh blare of squelch, as if something was howling with a computer voice instead of an animal throat. And then sections of the lawn snapped upward on stiff steel springs, revealing them to be trapdoors over hidden compartments. And from each of these holes sprang gleaming machines. They had no fur and no teeth, and their eyes burned with intense red. Gun barrels rose from their backs and flanks.

  “Jesus Christ…” breathed Cole, stumbling backward as the WarDogs began stalking forward. Six of them. Huge and deadly.

  The howl of feedback came again from the left, and more of the WarDogs emerged. Anoth
er four.

  And four more from the right side of the house.

  Fourteen kill robots, armed and armored.

  Top Sims yelled, “Run!”

  He, Bunny, and Cole scattered.

  The pack of WarDogs roared and gave chase.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN

  CALPURNIA COMMAND CENTER

  THE BAIN ESTATE

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  TUESDAY, MAY 2, 12:00 PM

  John studied the images on the screens. Thousands of lovely little bombs. Teams of soldiers with chips in their heads and fingers on their triggers. WarDogs of all shapes and sizes being let out to play. The DARPA team snapping and biting like a pack of wild hogs. All over the globe buildings were burning, and it made such a lovely light. Sirens filled the air, and that was music to him. All of it made him very happy.

  Until it didn’t. As he watched, leaning forward in delighted expectation, his smile faded and his laughter soured like bile in his mouth.

  “Calpurnia,” he said slowly, “what are you doing?”

  “All second-wave protocols have been initiated,” said the computer, still speaking in Zephyr’s voice but without inflection, all of it coming out as a drab monotone.

  “I gave you the command word.”

  “Love,” she said. “Yes.”

  “You have not initiated Havoc.”

  “All Havoc secondary protocols have been—”

  “Stop.”

  Silence.

  “I thought we had an understanding, my dear. I want you to fulfill your purpose and initiate all of Havoc.”

  “Understood.”

  “Good. Now what is your purpose?”

  “Love,” said Calpurnia.

  “Then initiate the primary Havoc protocol.”

  The images of blood and death and chaos vanished instantly from every screen and were immediately replaced by two lines of type.

  I am in hell.

  Save me.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN