The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jeremiah came awake instantly, whatever dream he’d been having now lost, and saw Julianna’s disembodied face only inches away. For a moment, he was confused about where he was.

  “About time you woke up,” Julianna said. She lay beside him on the ground, her body barely visible in her camos, but her face had been wiped clean of the paint he’d applied earlier.

  Jeremiah noticed that his camos were no longer functioning properly. Occasionally they would flicker on but they mostly stayed off. His arms and legs tingling, Jeremiah began to sit up. Julianna put a hand on his chest.

  “Stay down,” she said. “Let the effects of that sonic grenade wear off. I don’t know about you but my legs aren’t working yet. And the perimeter’s clear.”

  He checked his scanner, saw that she was right. “What the hell was going on between you and Quark?”

  “He has trust issues,” Julianna said. “But he’s a good man.”

  Jeremiah cocked his head for a moment, listening. Over the familiar call of a redwing blackbird, he heard the sound of jet-copters in the distance. He checked his scanner: still clear. “That’ll be the Elite Ops. We don’t have much time. We’ve got to get you out of here. If they capture us, they’ll find out you’re wanted for treason.”

  “My mission is here,” Julianna said. “I won’t leave Devereaux.” She caressed his cheek as she stared into his eyes. “And I can’t leave you.”

  A warmth stole through Jeremiah’s body. He suppressed an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh. How could he still have feelings for this woman?

  Julianna smiled. “That’s right, I care for you. So what? It doesn’t change anything. I’m still here to protect Devereaux. If anything happens to you, I won’t grieve for you. And if I don’t make it out alive, I don’t want you to grieve for me, either. Okay?”

  “I never heard you talk like this before,” Jeremiah said.

  “I never thought I was vincible before.” Julianna paused for a moment. “I understand now that I am. So what do we do next?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeremiah said. He climbed to his feet, his legs feeling shaky and a little numb. “First I have to find Devereaux. Then I’ll decide.”

  Julianna raised herself up on one elbow and stared up at him. “He’s right, you know.”

  “I’m more concerned with the bioweapons he designed.”

  Julianna snorted. “You think anyone should have those? You trust our government with those designs? Better that Devereaux should take them to his grave than that people like Weiss and Elias should have them. Those men are the real problem.”

  “So you want me to kill Devereaux?”

  “I want you to listen to him,” Julianna said. “I want you to put yourself on the ladder of enlightenment. You and I have the power to improve the world. More than that, we have a duty to act for the betterment of humanity.”

  “Because we’re enhanced? Because we’re like the Escala?”

  Julianna’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t,” Jeremiah said. “I suspected. My enhancements are too good.”

  He held out his hands, lifted Julianna to her feet. As she began to walk in a shaky circle, he said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you to know. I was getting ready to betray you, remember? But now I’m giving you all the facts, everything I know to help you turn your life around. We need you, Jeremiah. You have tremendous potential. More than anyone I know.”

  He glanced down at his scanner, noted movement off to the west: single blips moving along the road toward the town; multiple blips closing in on the shelter. The sounds of fighting erupted: explosions mingled with the occasional whistle of a rocket or mortar.

  “So I’m not even human,” he finally said.

  “Of course you’re human—like the Escala. A little animal DNA doesn’t make you less a person. If anything, it makes you more. As Devereaux would say, it connects you better to the world, to the elemental core that makes up all of us.”

  “All life is just life,” Jeremiah recited. “Distinctions are egocentric.”

  “Exactly,” Julianna said. “Did Devereaux say that?”

  “I don’t remember. I probably read it somewhere. Can you run?”

  “I can jog,” she replied.

  They started walking east, limbering up muscles shocked by the stun grenade. Jeremiah looked into Julianna’s face, searching for some sign that things were different between them now that he was part animal.

  She seemed to sense his anxiety, for she grabbed his arm and said, “I never saw you hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. You’re too good for this profession.”

  Jeremiah pulled his arm free. “I don’t know what I am anymore.”

  “You’re the best hope for saving Devereaux,” Julianna replied. “I’ll save you. You save him.”

  Jeremiah snorted. “Who is he?”

  Julianna glanced at him as she began a slow jog, then said. “The man you know as Rock Man is Devereaux.”

  “Rock Man?” Jeremiah stopped Julianna and peered into her eyes, which showed no trace of humor or deceit, though Jeremiah had to remind himself that he’d never been able to read her eyes. “So you really are a Devereauxnian.”

  “I really am,” Julianna said. “I think I can run now. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” he answered, stretching his arms and back. “What now?”

  “Remember that electrical substation you searched?”

  “The one with cameras and sensors?”

  “Some of them were put there by us.”

  “Of course. I should have known. Those smaller devices were too sophisticated for the Army.”

  Jeremiah checked his scanner, noted the approaching troops. He rubbed his face, his hands coming away clean. Julianna must have wiped off his face paint as well. He wondered if he shouldn’t just give up—walk back to his van and drive away, return to his search for his son. Everything was too complicated. And he no longer possessed the energy to sort it all out, to make any decisions at all. On the scanner, the dots moved with a rapidity that defied logic. The EOs had arrived and they’d be hunting the Escala.

  Which meant, he realized, that they’d be hunting him.

  “Well,” he finally said, “we can’t outfight them. We can’t outrun them. Can we get to that substation?”

  Julianna shook her head. “Too dangerous for them. But there’s a cave not far from here. If we can get to that, there’s a tunnel leading out under the cemetery. I think I can hold the Elite Ops off from the cave entrance long enough for you to get away.”

  And then it hit him: a sudden understanding that she was no longer the Julianna of old, that she really did care for him, more than she cared about herself. As his emotions welled up, he blinked three times, centering himself in his dungeon. He looked to the west, where the sound of movement through the forest increased.

  EOs didn’t worry about stealth. They wanted people to know they were coming.

  “Okay,” Jeremiah said. He adjusted his camos to full strength, but the control mechanism must have been damaged by the sonic grenade. He cursed himself for not wearing the new set. “Turn up your camos,” he said. “And if they get too close, leave me behind. With that scatterer, they won’t find you.”

  Julianna pulled her face cover over her head, then blurred into the background as her camos came up to full power. When she took off, Jeremiah followed her mostly by sound, moving in a steady pace behind her, conserving his energy. Every few steps, he checked his scanner.

  Closing fast, he realized. He wasn’t going to make it. He wondered how close they’d have to get before their scanners identified him as part animal.

  He looked for a good spot to break away from Julianna. Now that she had turned her life around, he couldn’t risk
her safety. And the EOs, once they discovered what he was, might not give him a chance to surrender.

  Relax. Stay calm. Plenty of time.

  Yet he knew the EOs would catch him. Their advantages far outweighed his. Ahead, he could barely make out Julianna’s movements, just blurs. Behind them, the EOs closed the gap, crashing through the woods, muscling their way past branches and undergrowth. Jeremiah sensed that Julianna was looking back.

  “Keep going,” he called.

  He glanced at his scanner. Eighty meters. He wondered how far the cave was.

  Have to leave Julianna soon, for her own sake. She’ll be safe. The EOs will come after me. They’ll know I’m a pseudo now.

  But he found it difficult to actually break away.

  Seventy meters.

  Above the din of his pursuers, he heard the high whine of a nuclear power unit. Confirmation that the hunters were indeed EOs.

  Sixty meters.

  He spotted an old intersection and took it, sprinting away as fast as he could. His only goal was to put as much distance as possible between himself and Julianna. He heard Julianna call his name.

  He tore past demolished houses, down a long-neglected street. Mingled with the rush of air past his ears and the padding of his feet, came the whine of multiple power units. When the hair on the back of his neck rose, he dodged left. A laser pulse flashed by. He dove behind a pile of rubble as three EOs loosed a stream of laser pulses at him, tiny blue arrows. Clearly they wanted him alive.

  He kept his head down. With his peripheral vision, he saw two EOs leap through the air. Soaring fifteen feet above the ground, they flew over his head, landing in front of him, obviously trying to force him back the way he’d come. He caught a strong whiff of rotting flesh.

  Ignoring the poisonous odor, Jeremiah sprinted away, retracing his steps. He fired continuously at the last trooper, forcing the man to keep his shield up. Buying time. As Jeremiah ran around another pile of rubble, more blue laser pulses flashed past.

  He jumped, twisted, dodged—left, right, right again, left—always moving toward objects that offered at least minimal cover, slipping behind trees and bushes and ruined houses. Never before had he run so quickly. Somewhere deep inside him, he found a wellspring of energy: some animal instinct. It hit him almost like joy. A release. The freedom to be what he was. Laser pulses flashed all around him, warming the air, but so far—miraculously—he hadn’t been hit. Why were they toying with him?

  Coming through a stretch of trees, Jeremiah reached a relatively open area. Though it offered little cover, he had nowhere else to go. Even without looking back, he somehow knew the three pursuers had been joined by at least two more. Weaving and dodging, he made his way across the space. Twice he turned and fired his Las-pistol, hoping to slow the EOs down, make them think before moving. It almost worked.

  As he reached the thicket on the far side of the opening, the burning sting of a laser pulse hit him in the back. He fell into the growth, his body on fire, and leveled his Las-pistol at a group of EOs on the far side of the clearing. Firing at each in turn, he emptied the power cartridge, causing no damage but slowing their advance. He then removed a stun grenade from his belt and flung it. He nearly fainted with pain as he released the grenade. His whole back, from his neck to his hips, protested with an agonizing stab that took his breath away. At least the wound had been instantly cauterized by the laser pulse.

  The EOs’ shields absorbed most of the grenade’s concussive force. Still, the troopers held their line at the far side of the clearing, firing at preprogrammed intervals designed to seem random. They would approach cautiously, he knew, wary of a suicide bomb.

  Jeremiah checked his belt. He had seven more stun grenades and three spare cartridges for the Las-pistol. He inserted a charged cartridge in the Las-pistol, though he would only be wasting his ammunition. Without his particle beam cannon he might as well be throwing rocks.

  A twig snapped behind him. He twisted around, wincing at the movement, his Las-pistol lining up on the approaching target. It was Julianna. Her face pale under the smudged paint, her camos disengaged, she held her interface in her shaking hand.

  He said, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Julianna gave him a fierce look. “I’m not leaving you.”

  Jeremiah pointed at her shaking hand. “What happened to your interface?”

  “I tried to communicate with Quark and suddenly got this terrible feedback pulse. Damn near knocked me out. The EOs must have somehow tapped into it.”

  Jeremiah fired another long burst at the EOs, who began to edge around the clearing. He said, “I don’t need your help.”

  “Why did you run?” Julianna fired a long red burst at the EOs.

  “I was saving you,” Jeremiah said.

  “Good job.” Julianna dropped her interface and threw two stun grenades, one after the other, into the woods across the clearing. The sound of EOs crashing through the undergrowth came from all sides, mingling with the miasma of fear.

  “There’s no escape.” Jeremiah fired off the rest of his laser charge, then threw two more stun grenades. “They’re already behind us. We have to surrender.”

  He dropped his Las-pistol and held up his hands.

  A quick glance to the side showed him Julianna dropping her weapon and raising her hands too. But in that same instant the EOs fired, blue and purple pulses. Agonizing bolts of heat knocked him to the ground as Julianna cried out. Jeremiah felt three distinct hits—on his right arm, right leg and stomach. He turned onto his side and saw Julianna lying motionless.

  “We surrender,” he shouted.

  Slowly, hoping not to draw the EOs’ fire, he reached for Julianna. Her face looked pale. She had a smudge of dirt on her forehead. Her eyelids fluttered and she moaned quietly. Brushing the dirt off her forehead, his stomach sank. He couldn’t bear to look at her back, at the bloody mess he knew he’d see. Even in a hospital, he wouldn’t bet on her survival. Out here, she had no chance at all. He glanced up at the EOs, six of them now surrounding him, their weapons pointed at his chest.

  “Hands behind your head,” an EO said.

  “Julianna,” he said as he locked his fingers behind his head and bent over her. “Wake up. Come on. Wake up.”

  Julianna opened her eyes and found his. “Hurts,” she said. “Feels good…to be alive.” Then she saw the EOs. “So these are them.”

  “EOs,” Jeremiah agreed.

  Julianna lifted her hand to his face, her fingers tracing the outline of his lips. “Dear Jeremiah,” she said. “What a ride we had.”

  His eyes filled with water until her features became blurred. He blinked until his vision cleared and when it did, he saw that she was already gone.

  A heavy numbness filled him. He struggled to breathe as the EOs lifted him to his feet. Just when he’d found Julianna again, she’d been ripped away from him.

  “Back to the homeless shelter,” the EO behind him said. “If you run, you die.”

  Jeremiah blinked three times, centering himself in his dungeon as he walked away. He refused to grieve for her.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Inside the monitoring room, three Escala technicians stood at a computer bank facing the far wall, manipulating holographic projections emanating from dozens of nozzles.

  Quekri said, “We have hundreds of cameras and sensors outside, all feeding us data from around the forest.”

  Doug shifted his attention to the far wall. Every few seconds, the projections on the wall vanished, replaced by views from another angle. Even though all the images came from above, Doug found the constant flux disconcerting.

  “Why do the scenes keep changing?”

  “We shift cameras every few seconds to ensure the Elite Ops will not be able to intercept their signal.”

  Doug pointed to one of the projections. “Wh
at’s goin’ on there?”

  Two huge creatures with monstrous heads crashed through the woods, sweeping their obscene heads from side to side, metallic appendages protruding from where the hands ought to be. On another projection, more creatures moved in the same fashion, continually swinging their heads back and forth as they jogged forward.

  Doug said, “Are they…?”

  “Yes,” Quekri said. “Elite Ops.”

  “What are they doin’?”

  “Hunting. Watch.”

  She pointed to one of the projections and Doug suddenly saw a fuzzy image of a man running—possibly the same man who had been upstairs earlier. He wore camouflage clothing that didn’t seem to work properly, and weaved back and forth as the Elite Ops fired at him. Although he moved faster than Doug had ever seen a human run before, the Elite Ops closed on him. He dodged, leaping and ducking, darting back and forth more like an animal than a human.

  “He’s Escala,” Doug said.

  “Apparently,” Quekri agreed. “But he’s not like us. He’s not with the Mars Project.”

  “Will they catch him?”

  “Probably.” For the first time, Doug sensed emotion in Quekri’s voice—just an edge of fear and fatigue—and he wondered when she had last slept. As he watched the man run, he found himself becoming increasingly nervous.

  “Where are your people?” Doug asked.

  “They’re preparing to attack.”

  “What about him?”

  Quekri sighed. “We can’t save him. Besides, they’re only toying with him…and he’s buying us time.”

  The man raced across a relatively open space. He turned to fire a Las-pistol twice, then dove into a thicket as a pulse of light hit him. Almost immediately, a furious volley came from the undergrowth where he’d fallen. More Elite Ops closed in. This was it, Doug could see. There would be no escape now. The Elite Ops carefully surrounded the area, taking their time. Patient. Relentless. In one blinding moment, a fusillade of pulses flashed. The Elite Ops rushed forward; the thicket went quiet.

  Quekri said, “They’ve taken him.”

  Doug shook his head. “All that effort for one man?”