by Eric Wood
Sam tried to stifle any reaction to again seeing that cursed drive, the one that had started all of this mess. "That data drive, what is it?" He needed to know, to understand what it was that had cost Vincente his life.
"This, Sam, is the future. The perfecting, or at very least the advancement, of a grand process that began twenty years ago."
Sam felt cold. His hold on the rifle wavered as he lost strength in his arms, the weight of the idea settling onto his shoulders. "The disease, the Horsemen —"
"It's not so far from here, in fact," Jed said. "The lab where we did our work, that is. Amazing it’s taken me so long to return even this close to my old home."
Sam knew that the truth would be bad, but this? "Jed, are you trying to tell me that, what, you created the Horseman virus?"
Jed shrugged. "Well, not alone, of course. Those kinds of projects require teams, funding, facilities, the sign-off of Congressmen...but yes, more than anyone else, the agent you call the Horsemen Virus was my project. My dream. And now, with this data — a single miraculous success after twenty years of failed experiments in this ruined land — I can finally see it through to the end. After twenty years, the flaw can be fixed, my serum perfected. Humanity, perfected."
Sam raised his weapon up and held it on Jed. The barrel jittered and danced; his hands were shaking. "If that's true, then you destroyed the world, and I should kill you right now. Of course, it isn't true. It can't be. Why should I believe your crazy, insane story?"
Jed seemed unfazed by the weapon. "We all make mistakes, Sam. Even I am not...perfect. The original agent was flawed, yes, but so was the Old World. The results were not what I had expected. Science can be a messy business."
He took a step toward Sam. "I could list off all the details no one but the original lab's director would know. Names like Project Zeus and Project Pandora and Project Mars. The Talon, Tusk, and Claw epigenetic variations. But that wouldn't mean much to you, and anyway it's not necessary. Because by the way you're holding your weapon, I can tell you believe me. I can tell by the tone of your voice. And I can tell most of all by the look in your eyes."
"Well, when you put it that way, I believe you," Sam said. He pulled the trigger and put two rounds in Jed's chest. The impact of the shots spun the Colony Elder halfway around, but he stayed on his feet. Even in the low light of the darkened server room, Sam could see that both wounds were bloodless.
Jed slowly turned back toward him, laughing to himself. "Now, a temper like that I am familiar with. You had to know that wouldn't work, and yet you did it anyway. Anyone else, and I would judge the action foolish. But not from you, Sam. From you, I can respect the pure defiance on display.’ That's why I needed you to come here, and that is why I knew you would."
Sam's finger hesitated over the rifle's trigger, every fiber of his being crying out to squeeze it, to empty the rest of the clip into the Reaper standing in front of him, though he knew it would have no effect. Instead, he let his arms go slack, and the weapon sag to his side. His mission, his whole life in the Colony, all of it was a lie. All of it meant nothing.
"Why? Why do you care about me at all, if you have your damned drive? There was no reason for any of this," Sam said. He hated the whine that had crept into his voice, the tone of defeat Jed no doubt would immediately detect. "You have some sort of interest in me. Why was it then, really, that Vincente and I were the ones you chose to send after that thing?" He was babbling now, but he didn't care. He’d come for answers, and he was going to get them all. "Why did I have to watch Vincente die?"
Jed stared back at him, looking so relaxed and serene that Sam nearly re-raised the rifle. "You do not accomplish one task, Sam," Jed said, "when you can accomplish two. I needed to run field tests. On you."
Sam barely processed the Elder's words, so little sense did they make. Jed, apparently recognizing Sam's confusion, crossed his arms behind his back and continued talking.
"The drive's retrieval from our research station was always a high priority, of course, but it wasn't our only priority. We needed to collect data on our — my — other great creation. That necessitated your trip."
He began to slowly pace the room, still speaking to Sam but otherwise ignoring him. "Vincente, of course, was always a talent. Another bit of serendipity, a young man like that, desperate and alone, arriving at my gates. The perfect person to put in charge of watching over a unique and promising subj—" his words stumbled, for just a fraction of an instant, “in charge of watching over the promising child. Someone that could grow with the child and keep an eye on him. Keep him out of the hands of certain interested parties."
Sam let his gun lower slightly. He suddenly felt weak. "You...assigned Vincente to me?" It wasn't possible, was it?
"Oh yes," Jed said, answering Sam's silent question. "Don't feel too bad about it, he did seem to grow quite fond of you eventually.
“A shame about his death, but in any event, with you returned to me he would have become superfluous."
The truth is rarely fun, Sammy, Vincente's voice said. Though it's also never as simple as people like this try to make it. Don't forget that.
"What makes me so important?" Sam asked.
Jed smiled. "You know the answer, even if you still can't quite accept it yet. Why do you think you've always felt so out of place within your own Colony? Why can you barely remember your parents? Can you even name one fact about them, other than that they were killed by Reapers? In reality, they were a fiction, a ruse played out for the Colony's inhabitants, and a story told to you to keep a secret that was never strictly necessary, but one I insisted on nonetheless.
"What makes you special, Sam? You could say that, in a way, you predate the Horsemen. An embryo, created in happier times and only gestated and born later. Why am I telling all of this to you now, you ask? Why would I not? I am creating a new world, Sam, and I want you there with me. You are, after all, my son."
55
Marcus watched as Roach and Rend dragged furniture and equipment in front of the laboratory doors, working to reinforce them against the enemies on the other side. Marcus wanted to tell them they needn't bother: the door was six inches of ceramic plating, vacuum seals and reinforced steel, and he had permanently disabled the outer hatch when he’d broken them in here. He wanted to tell them that no one else would be able to get in without a good bit of heavy machinery and a whole lot of time, but he found he couldn't speak.
The last time he had been inside these labs — the ones so deep down that even most of Roosevelt's lieutenants didn't know about them — Rend had been here as well. At that time, of course, Rend had been strapped to one of the room's medical beds, and Marcus had been begrudgingly assisting Dr. Allan with Rend's torture. Not that they had called it torture. No, it had been 'research,' recommended not so subtly by Roosevelt's Company adviser Cutter.
Cutter had promised that this 'research' would lead to the defeat of Madame Ki's faction and Roosevelt's undisputed rule of Cheyenne; moreover, the soldiers it produced could help Roosevelt achieve his dream of spreading civilization across the Wilds.
Roosevelt explained this personally to Marcus each time Marcus tried to avoid coming down here. Roosevelt had told him, and though it shamed him now, had convinced him, that what they were doing was justified. Somehow, the old man had Marcus believing that this strange young man from the wooded Wilds was not really human, that Marcus was wrong to think of him as such.
He had appealed to Marcus's emotions, telling him that he, Roosevelt, was counting on Marcus, that refusing to assist Dr. Allan with the 'research' was betraying the old man's trust in him. More to Marcus's shame, Dr. Allan had appealed to his mind, his curiosity, by explaining the complexity and the importance of the work they were doing. Still, in the end Marcus had made his choice, and now that they were back, he couldn't muster the strength to look Rend in the eye.
"Hey kid," Roach said, knocking him in the shoulder with something halfway between a push and a punch, "snap
out of it. We've still got work to do. Time to make with the tech magic."
Right. If he could do anything to atone for what he’d been a part of, he could do it here. He raised his head and nodded to Roach, then scanned the room to locate the —
It was then he realized they weren't alone in the room.
Dr. Allan appeared too stunned or afraid to move, half-hiding behind a workstation. Roach turned to follow Marcus's stunned expression. When she saw Allan, her eyes lit up. "Doctor!" she called, her voice warm and cheery, as if she was a housewife waving across the driveway to a neighbor, "I had been meaning to schedule an appointment." She ejected the clip from her weapon and jammed in a new one, her mouth forming a wide, wicked smile.
Beside him, Rend was still looking off into the middle distance, his high, curved shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths. He seemed to shrink slightly with each exhalation. "Roach, like you told the boy, we've got a job to do," he growled.
"The door's locked, isn't it?" Roach replied. She gestured toward the far corner with her weapon. "There's the computer; do your thing. What, you want me to help you type out hacks? 'Cause if that's the case, there were some serious problems with our mission planning from the get-go."
Marcus shrugged. "No, I got it covered. I just...what are you going to do to him?"
Roach smiled. "You have your work, Marcus. I have mine."
Whatever Roach had in mind for Dr. Allan — and Marcus doubted it was anything remotely good — Marcus wouldn't be able to stop her. Better to just put it from his mind and focus on his work. It was an uncomfortably familiar rationalization, he thought, especially so for being in this room.
He could take a moral inventory later. For now, Marcus jogged up to the labs main terminal and typed in his login information. He breathed a sigh of relief when he was granted full access, with all of his old clearances. Sloppy work, guys, he thought. The first thing they should have done was make sure Marcus couldn't re-access the citadel's mainframe.
Because now that I'm in, they don't have a chance of keeping control of any of their systems.
Marcus's fingers flew across the keyboard as he quickly produced new blocks of code and called up old exploits he’d hidden deep in the programs, where they had sat waiting for a day just like today.
On one of the monitors in front of him, red squares indicating citadel systems still under the rebel's control turned green one by one. A few floors above, one of the rebels' computer people — one of Marcus's old co-workers — was running security and would be opposing his every move. Which admin did they have on this, Marcus wondered? Jenkins? Warren? Probably Warren, considering how stilted the syntax was.
Marcus focused, breathed, and let his fingers dance in front of him. Three red lights left, then two, and then just one. Behind him, he heard a solid, sickening smack, followed by a whimper and a choked cry. Marcus gritted his teeth and tried his best to ignore it. He breathed a small sigh of relief when he heard Rend gently tell Roach to calm down. He breathed another sigh of relief when the last box turned green. Now all of the citadel's systems belonged to him.
With a couple of keystrokes, he unlocked the remaining doors between Roosevelt's assault team and the executive command center. Next, a couple quick commands blocked off the two remaining rebel teams, restricting them to a small section of hallways where they would keep until Roosevelt's teams accomplished their mission.
Now that he’d done all he could to help retake the citadel, Marcus turned to his next, more important task. He opened up the external comms screen and located the node that had remained locked since before he’d been born. Warren Air Force Base.
He took out the two small drives, each containing one half of the base's access code, from a small pocket at his chest, underneath his bulletproof vest. Marcus entered Ki's half of the access codes into the mainframe, did the same with Roosevelt's half. The node turned green. He opened the base's control screen and located its central data drives. Then he removed the final drive — the one that contained Marcus's own code, the one that would save or doom everyone in Cheyenne — from a separate pocket. He inserted it into the computer.
He pressed enter, executing his code, just as Roach and Rend appeared at his back.
"Is it done?" Rend asked.
"We've done as much as we can from this end," Marcus said. "It's all on Sam now."
We can undo all the wrongs that have been done, Sam," Jed said. "We can fix not only the damage the agent has done to humanity, but all of the crude, inelegant wrongness that nature burdens us with at birth. We can replace the original sin of natural selection with the divinity that is our own design. My design."
Jed moved slowly from one side of the computer room to the other, circling Sam like an Old World theater performer — or was it predator? "The Outbreak, The Horsemen's March across the globe, the Wilds, the Infected, the death, the depredations, the terrible human suffering: we can undo all of it with this research, enough workers, and a few hard months of labor. We can create a new Garden of Eden, Sam. One ruled not by some made-up god, but by man."
"And so to usher in this garden, what, just one more city has to die?" Sam asked. He had seen enough Old World movies to know how this was going to play out.
Jed stopped moving and stared at Sam open-mouthed, seemingly shocked. "What? No, of course not. We're not here to destroy Cheyenne, nor any of the other Free Cities. This world has so few true people left; we wouldn't dare risk the ones who remain."
"Strange thing then, bringing that whole army," Sam said.
Jed scowled and crossed his arms. He shook his head slowly. "Why would I arrive with an army, Sam? Why would I possibly arrive with anything less? Surely you know what approaches from the south?"
Sam felt a small but insistent vibration at his hip. Marcus had activated the beacon. Sam ignored it for now.
"So, you're saying that you came here to save the city, then?" Sam asked. Jed had begun to pace again slowly. Sam did likewise, trying to think of anything to keep the Reaper Elder occupied. "If that's the case, why come to this base first? Everyone inside the city assumes you're going to use it to destroy Cheyenne."
"It could be used to destroy the city," Jed said, smiling. "It could also be used to save it from the sea of Ravagers rising from the south. No doubt that was what brought you here. Yet another amazing act of bravery. I admit to feeling more than a bit of pride when I reviewed your exploits, Sam.”
"I have some unfortunate news with regards to Roosevelts so-called plan," Jed continued. "While this air force base did house a small military drone force, it was still very much experimental technology, and much of it was shipped to the east coast in the early days of the virus's outbreak, where no doubt it was destroyed along with the great Old World cities. I'm sorry son, but there is no great military salvation waiting within these ancient halls. There never was."
Sam's heart fell. Without the drones, what hope did Cheyenne really have against the Colony army? Against the Ravager army?
There was still a near-civil war raging within the walls, plus who-knew-how-many Plague-Heads roaming the streets, plus Company agents sowing dissent and sabotage. Even if the city could unify, without the drones the outside armies still had them outgunned and out-manned. Without the drones, how could they win?
Still, one thing didn't make sense to him. "If there are no drones, then why are you here?" Sam asked.
"Ahh, good thinking," Jed said, his whole demeanor livening slightly. "There are no drones, true, but there is something far, far more valuable within the walls of this facility. When we began our project, all those years ago, our main facility was an unmarked one, high in the Rocky Mountains. For any number of reasons, that facility has been irrevocably lost to us. There was, however, a network of secret research facilities scattered among the surrounding military bases. The old government was big on redundancies, Sam, as well as oversight. One of these traits served our species poorly, but the other may turn out to be our salvation.
You see, of all the auxiliary bases, this one is the only one to remain intact. We've known about it for years but haven't wanted to risk exposing it till it was necessary.
"Now that we have the research contained on the disc that you and Vincente so valiantly obtained, the time has come to shift from maintaining the old order to building the new. In Jackson, they unlocked the full potential of the agent that we now call the Horsemen. This form you call Reaper will soon seem a weak, dull-minded thing compared to what I will create with this drive. Twenty years ago, I played simple tunes with our species' genome like a deaf man with a broken piano. With this, I will be like a conductor with a great orchestra at my command."
Jed took a breath; when he spoke again his voice, which had risen nearly to a roar, was again quiet, calm. "But as with any great project, the proper support is key. Within these walls are the facilities to fix the disaster that is the Horsemen; to complete the work that was begun; to build the new world and finish the new man. That is why I came here, Sam. These facilities will prove incredibly useful, but the old data contained in these servers is invaluable. They hold what I believe to be the only remaining copies of our research still within reach."
"What do you mean, 'still within reach?” Sam asked. "You mean like on this continent? I thought you said this was an American project. Who has the other research?"
"Never mind that, Sam," Jed said. "Instead, think of what we can do. Already we've used recovered version 2.0 serum to create advanced soldier prototypes, and with these facilities, we can expand that program tenfold."
"What?"
Jed waved the question away. "Old research, just rediscovered. We attempted to field test it on a wild Ravager-type strain, but one of my errant former colleagues hijacked the project, to horrific results."
Sam's jaw fell open. "You mean Deacon, right?" he asked. "The Ravager that killed Vincente? Are you saying you created him?"