The Fire and the Free City

by Eric Wood

  "And if they don't let you in?" Sam asked.

  "Things would become more violent, at first. Though in truth, once the great Ravager army arrives, I believe the people of the Free City will become quite anxious to work with us."

  Sam nodded, absently flicking his fingers between his knees and against the computer next to him.

  "Alright then," Sam said, "I'm with you." He looked up at his father and smiled.

  The most convincing smile he could manage.

  "And that's it, I've finished the revised program," Marcus said in his ear. "Just jam the beacon in the drive slot and it's done. They won't be able to stop the transfer or the wipe from their end. Good luck, Sam. And, uh...I really hope you're listening to this and I didn't wildly misinterpret what you were trying to tell me over the comms."

  "Unfortunately, dad, I'll be the only one," Sam said. He dropped the thumb drive he had palmed into his fingers and jammed it into the computer. The tiny red light on the drive blinked once and turned green, and then the entire room lit up.

  Jed looked around in wild surprise until his gaze settled on the nearest computer monitor. Sam couldn't read it from where he sat, but he knew the gist, and by Jed's expression, so did his father.

  When Sam realized the only thing of value in Warren Air Force Base was its data, he’d opened his comms channel and made sure Marcus could hear every word spoken by both Elder Jed and himself. He let Marcus know, as best he could, what the data was, and how valuable it was to Jed and the Colonists. And most importantly, how it was the only existing copy of the data.

  Marcus was currently downloading the lab's data to the computers within Roosevelt's citadel and wiping the same data from the base's servers. Sam hoped they could use the data as a hostage to hold off the Colony forces and throw a wrench into Elder Jed's plans to turn the world into his own personal Petri dish.

  "No!" Jed screamed. "What did you do?"

  Sam sighed and sat back in the chair. Jed's face turned from shocked to murderously furious as he looked over at Sam.

  "Who do you think you are?" Jed roared. "You don't make decisions like this! What, you think because you are my son that you're special? You think you're the only one I made? Even the first?" Jed grabbed a desk beside him and threw it, along with the three ancient computers on top of it, across the room like they were made of cardboard. "Do you think you're the only copy of Sam that I can make? The only thing special about you is curled up in the nuclei of your cells, and I'm going to rip it out!"

  He dashed toward Sam, faster than Sam had any chance of avoiding, and his fist came down on Sam's face. Sam felt himself hit the ground; the last instant before everything went black, he had one final thought.

  He hoped Abigail would have a good life.

  58

  It sounded like the Plague-Heads had finally — finally — calmed down.

  Since Jacinta had ferried in Michelle and the last of the market stragglers and barred the door behind them, it had been near-constant commotion. Scraping and banging, groaning and roaring, the Plague-Heads had been insistent in the way only semi-sentient beings can be in trying to breach the walls and infect the dozens of potential viral hosts within. It took Jacinta back to the early days, back when Cheyenne was still without walls: every time a swarm of Plague-Heads came over the horizon they’d retreated below ground, or just locked their doors and hoped for the best. Now though, after hours of their inhuman siege, it sounded like the horde had finally given up and moved on, looking for less well-entrenched prey.

  Still, though, Jacinta was hesitant to unbar the door. Plague-Heads weren't much for deception, but that didn't mean they hadn't gone into some sort of stasis or rest outside: the walls probably wouldn't hold up against a renewed siege. Before they gave up, the Plague-Heads had managed to rip off a good chunk of the bar’s outer layers, and in some places had gotten all the way through and opened up tiny holes where the fading twilight now streaked in, like tiny enemy searchlights. No, the more she thought about it, the more she was certain: if the Plague-Heads attacked again, everyone here would die.

  Michelle came up beside her as she stared at the front door. "Do you think they're really gone?" she asked, her voice strong and without fear, somehow.

  "It’s impossible to know for sure," Jacinta replied. "I really wish this place still had some windows."

  "The drunks kept breaking them. As I recall, someone said they weren't paying for another damn window as long as this place still served booze."

  "What kind of fool would say that?" Jacinta wondered, allowing herself a small smile.

  "Besides, if there were windows, those things would already be inside."

  She had a point there. The two of them stood and listened for any movement, any activity at all, from outside. Nothing.

  "Screw it," Jacinta said. "We can't sit here forever, waiting for some sort of relief force that may never come." She moved to the door and took hold of the large wooden beam barring it shut. "I haven't gone completely crazy, doing this, have I?" she asked, hesitating.

  "Not completely," Michelle replied. "I think maybe just a peek outside couldn't hurt.

  Famous last words, Jacinta thought. She lifted the beam off its hooks and set it carefully on the ground. She reached for the first of the three deadbolts —

  Bang!

  The door shook with the impact, and Jacinta jumped back. From the far side of the room, a series of gasps and cries went up.

  "I guess that answers that question," Jacinta said, scrambling to put back the wooden beam.

  Bang Bang Bang!

  Three more impacts, too regularly spaced to be the semi-random questing of a Plague-Head. Was someone...knocking?

  "Can someone please open this stupid fucking door?" a voice, full of frustration and weariness, asked from outside. Jacinta recognized it just as Michelle did.

  "Abigail," they both said.

  Jacinta unbarred and unlocked the door, then slowly opened it a crack, then the rest of the way. She could barely believe what she saw.

  Outside of her bar were dozens upon dozens of dead Plague-Heads. Maybe fifty of them, sliced apart and lying in haphazard piles, slowly leaking the viscous black-red liquid that took the place of their blood. In the center of all this carnage, coated from head to toe in the same thick, dark, foul-smelling liquid, holding two large blades, and panting heavily, stood all five-foot-one and maybe 100 pounds of Abigail. Jacinta knew the girl was capable, dangerous even, but she definitely wouldn't have expected something like this.

  Sometimes it was good to be surprised.

  "Please tell me," Abigail said, between heavy gasps of air, "that you have some sort of hose in this place."

  Abigail was the last to arrive at the meeting at Jacinta's bar. She had come from the apartment above Jacinta and Michelle's home. It was her apartment now, she supposed, hers and Rend's and Roach's. And Sam's, though for the time being he was gone. He would return, though. Abigail would make sure of that.

  She had wondered growing up just how much punishment her body could take before it gave out for good. As she eased the door open, pain and aches wracking her from hand to foot, Abigail decided she had just about found the limit. Two near-full recoveries — one from the fight with the Reaper and Elena's bullet, one from the myriad injuries the Plague-Heads had dealt her — had left her feeling like an arthritic eighty-year-old. But each morning she felt a bit better, and soon she would be ready to go out again. She hoped she would find Elena, but as long as she found Sam, she would be content.

  Everyone she expected to see was here, seated around the square of Jacinta's tables. Roosevelt and Ki were here, seated opposite each other like before. Unlike before, each had considerably fewer lieutenants and bodyguards. Jacinta, Michelle, and a number of the city's citizens were here as well, looking shaken but resolute after the battle and the attack of the Plague-Heads. And Rend and Roach were here as well, seated not in the corner, bound, but at their own table, with Marcus seated next to
them. It seems spearheading the salvation of a city earns you a bit of respect, she thought.

  There was a single open chair next to Roach. One chair, not two; yet another reminder of Sam's absence. Abigail felt a fresh wave of nausea wrack her body as she thought of the danger Sam must be in right now, and the sacrifice he had made for all of these people. She stifled her discomfort, not wanting to look weak, and made her way toward the empty seat.

  "Demon," Roach said, by way of greeting. The edge that had always been in her voice before was gone; Abigail almost thought she saw the trace of a grin on Roach's face as she gestured toward the chair.

  "Ravager," Abigail answered. She took her seat and motioned to Ki to begin the meeting.

  Ki looked almost amused to be given leave by a teenager, but rather than raise any noise about it, she instead began her speech.

  "Two days ago, we won a victory," Ki began. "But we shouldn't deceive ourselves that we have won the war. The Colony forces are still camped just outside of our walls, held back for the time being only because of the efforts of a brave handful. They will not stop, however, trying to re-take what they have lost, nor will they stop trying to take this city. The battle for Cheyenne is just beginning, and the only way we will emerge victorious is for all of us to work together.

  "Roosevelt and I have agreed to put aside our hostilities and work together to man the walls and guard against the inevitable infiltration attempts by the Colonies and their Company agents. Mutual trust and understanding being essential to this effort, both of us have agreed that neither can possess the trove of data we have taken from the Colonies. This data will be held by a neutral third party: the ones who did so much to obtain it seem the appropriate choice. Marcus Danvers has not only proven himself capable in the most trying of situations, but his expertise with computers makes him ideal for this task. Rend and Roach, the other two heroes of the day, will be tasked with protecting Mr. Danvers and assisting him with any projects he deems worthy to the defense effort. Now, onto what you citizens can do..."

  He crested the final hill at the head of his forces. At last the city was in sight.

  Cheyenne.

  Solomon paused, waiting for the vanguard of his army to catch up with him. He surveyed the open expanse ahead and noted with some satisfaction that Jed's army was still outside the city walls.

  The time had finally come. Jed was here, just as Solomon knew he would be. Inside the city, Abigail awaited, pinned down and penned in.

  Soon he would have his revenge, both on his ungrateful student and his arrogant, pompous former mentor. He would kill them, and then he would take what had been kept from him for so long. What was, he had decided long ago, his.

  He smiled, remembering how, so many years ago, all he’d wanted was to prevent something like this from coming to pass. No more. Now, the pieces were in place, and he was still one step ahead of his opponents. Soon, he would have everything he still wanted in this strange, brutal new world. Soon, he would no longer be the outcast, the wanderer, the fool. Soon, he would become a god.

  Soon.

  As soon as the meeting was concluded, Abigail was on her feet and approaching Ki.

  "I'm going out there," Abigail said. She made sure her tone conveyed that she wasn't asking.

  "I know you are," Ki said. "Why do think that I didn't assign you, our greatest asset, any task during the meeting? What would be the point, when it is obvious only one task will be acceptable to you?"

  "Well...good," Abigail said. She was caught a bit off-guard. She had expected Ki to fight her on this.

  "You want to get Sam back, and I understand that. I too want Sam back; he is extremely capable, and I believe he could be a great asset to us. More importantly, my benefactor wants him back, which means I will do everything possible to achieve just that."

  "Your benefactor?" Abigail asked. "Is this the same person as your 'outside source?'"

  Ki smiled and nodded. "They are one and the same. I will provide you the resources to get Sam back from the Colonists, but before I do that, my benefactor insists that she speak with you."

  Abigail shrugged. She would do whatever she had to do to get Sam back, even talk to this mysterious benefactor. "So just who is this outside source?" she asked.

  "She represents one of the few factions as powerful as the Colony army and the approaching Ravager army. More than that, I suspect she is the only person in this world who wants to get Sam away from his father more than you."

  PART FIVE

  Pandora

  Epilogue

  Before

  Dr. Solomon awoke with his face pressed against the cold tile of the testing room floor. If he had begun to feel sick before he’d passed out, now he felt positively pestilent. Everything hurt: his stomach felt like it was going to jump out of his throat, and his head pounded like ten killer hangovers all rolled into one.

  It took him a moment to remember where he was, what was going on. For a good thirty seconds, the blinking red lights and blaring klaxon of the alarms were completely confusing. His mind cleared in a painful flash, and the next moment he was struggling to his feet. Inside the actual test area, Jed and his acolytes still lay, unmoving, with the IVs in their arms. Solomon stumbled over to the control console, determined to shut down whatever it was Jed was doing.

  It only took a few button presses to find that Jed had locked both the console and the testing area. Dr. Solomon was no computer hacker, and Jed possessed far higher security clearance than him, so there was nothing more to be done here. Still, any knowledge of what Director Walker was up to might prove useful. Dr. Solomon called up a status report for the lab.

  The news was worse than he could have imagined.

  Jed had indeed combined the viral sample from Project Zeus and the fungal agent from Project Pandora. He had also, in his madness, incorporated both strains of Dr. Solomon's project Mars into the master agent; the 3-D rendering of the agent's structure on the screen was both beautiful and terrible. Still, Solomon could fix this, as long as —

  No.

  The next line of the lab's log hit Dr. Solomon like a steel beam to the chest. It spelled out nothing less than their end. Jed hadn't just injected his team with the agent; he had released an aerosolized version of it into both the surrounding military base and the nearby town. If Project Pandora proved to be anywhere near as infectious as its most recent tests had shown...

  That was his answer. Or maybe not the answer, but at least some faint hope. There was one scientist whose intellect and ambition matched the director's, and if he was lucky, she might even know his password to access the lab's control systems. She was the director's wife, after all.

  Dr. Solomon struggled out of the testing area, his vision blurry and his feet unsteady. In the outer hall, he saw another scientist, Dr. Vitali, who while clearly sick, seemed to be in slightly better shape. Dr. Solomon stumbled over to her and grabbed the lapels of her lab coat.

  "Saanvi, thank God you are still alive," Solomon said. "We need to find Dr. Walker; she may be the only one who can stop this."

  Dr. Vitali looked up at him, her eyes glassy. "What?" she said, her voice slurred. "Dr. Walker is the one causing all of this."

  "Dammit, Saanvi, not that Dr. Walker, the other one. Maybe she can talk some sense into her husband, or maybe she knows some way to stop this. Either way, we need to find Pandora."