The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  Marschenko clenched his fists as he looked up at the television. “I jerked on it when I saw that nun being murdered. I didn’t realize how out-of-control we’d become.” His voice quavered. “I didn’t realize a lot of things till I was forced to sit here and think. I never would have done that if you hadn’t…” Marschenko’s eyes welled up again. He blinked back the tears. “I can see now that we’re monsters. We deserve to die.”

  Jeremiah shook his head. How could he blame the EOs when they didn’t know what they were doing? They’d killed innocents never understanding the wrongness of their actions.

  Marschenko looked Jeremiah in the eye and said, “I’m sorry I took your son. I didn’t know what I…” He looked away. “That’s no excuse. It was just all so fuzzy. How could I have done such a thing? How could Donny have killed that nun?”

  “You know him?”

  “He’s a good guy. I’ve worked with him before. He would never do such a thing…except I saw him do it.”

  “It was Carlton’s fault—he ordered the killing. Somehow he learned to shut off the morality response in the EOs—creating the perfect killing machines. But I don’t blame you or Donny. I blame Carlton.”

  “Did you ever find out what happened to your son?”

  Jeremiah nodded. “Carlton wanted him for some secret project to turn him into an advanced fighter—genetic as well as mechanical enhancements. Like you and me, Jack. They want to turn my boy into a killer.”

  “We heard rumors about that program. Believe me, the Elite Ops don’t want that to happen, either.”

  Jeremiah studied Marschenko, noted the new humbleness, the rational thought process.

  “You have to kill me, Jones,” Marschenko said. “I understand that.”

  “No. Actually, I’m setting you free.”

  Jeremiah grabbed a Las-knife from a shelf, then stepped over and cut away Marschenko’s bonds. Tossing Marschenko his clothes, Jeremiah set Marschenko’s Las-pistol on the floor next to the helmet, then turned off the television and backed toward the stairs. He blinked three times, centering himself in his stone dungeon, just in case.

  After dressing, Marschenko massaged his wrists, then picked up his Las-pistol and helmet. He stood in the center of the room, ten feet away, not aiming the gun but pointing it in Jeremiah’s general direction.

  The bottom stair pressed against Jeremiah’s heel, a possible source of leverage if he had to dive out of the way. A vein in Marschenko’s forehead throbbed rapidly, and Jeremiah knew that the big man was also primed for action. He said, “You want to kill me, Jack?”

  Marschenko watched him warily, massaged his throat with his free hand and took a step to his left. He shrugged. “Kind of, yeah.”

  “Now you know how I feel.”

  Marschenko raised his Las-pistol six inches. All he had to do was swing it a foot to the right and it would be centered on Jeremiah’s chest. “What are we going to do about that?”

  Jeremiah inhaled deeply through his nostrils, his jaw clenched, his eyes never leaving Marschenko’s. He said, “I’ll leave that up to you, Jack. I’ve got no reason to keep you here.”

  “You know they’ll try to stop you from getting your son back?”

  “Yes.”

  For long seconds neither moved. Neither spoke. They simply stared at each other, giving no quarter. Jeremiah heard the hum of the air conditioner, smelled the burger and fries above the musty odor of a body confined too long to an enclosed space. Finally Marschenko said, “Let me access the files, see what I can find. But you’ll have to…” Marschenko lifted the helmet to indicate the dampening field.

  “I already shut down the field,” Jeremiah said.

  Marschenko nodded. Then, keeping his eyes on Jeremiah, he lowered his weapon and carefully tucked it into his belt. Relief swept across Jeremiah. He hadn’t realized how tense he was. As Marschenko donned his helmet, Jeremiah brought his heart rate and breathing under control.

  Marschenko stayed motionless for only a few seconds. When he took off the helmet, he said, “I can’t access anything. My helmet’s been deactivated.” He pointed to Jeremiah’s computer in the corner. “Can I use your system?”

  Jeremiah entered the necessary codes, then stood aside as Marschenko’s thick fingers flew across the keyboard. It looked odd, that big man hunched over, so adept with the computer. After a moment, Marschenko gestured to the screen. “Nothing stands out. You see anything?”

  Jeremiah glanced at the screen, spotted a familiar name. “What about this file? Lucas.”

  “No idea what that is,” Marschenko said. He typed in a series of passwords to access the file. “Here it is. Four years ago, Carlton Security contracted to acquire dozens of subjects for a gen-mod program.”

  “Genetic modification,” Jeremiah said.

  “I’ll download the file to your system,” Marschenko said. “One other thing. Someone tampered with this file recently.”

  “How do you know?”

  “There’s a misspelling in the first sentence.” Marschenko pointed it out. “Carlton built that into the software. Unless the proper codes are used to secure the data, a single word always comes up wrong the next time the file is opened.”

  “Eli,” Jeremiah said, a sinking feeling settling in his gut—more a confirmation of a nagging suspicion than a surprise.

  “So let’s go after him.”

  “He’s too powerful. Even if I could get to him, I couldn’t save my son. And Joshua’s life is more important than revenge.”

  Jeremiah shifted to the side and gestured toward the stairs but Marschenko didn’t move. Instead, the big man blushed and said, “I can’t believe you captured me so easily. You’re a hell of a soldier. I’d like to help you get your son back. I’d like to make that right.”

  “You might regret that offer,” Jeremiah said.

  “Honor is important to me,” Marschenko said. He looked Jeremiah in the eye, nodding once, almost imperceptibly. Jeremiah nodded back and Marschenko stepped past him, climbing out of the basement, his footsteps echoing off the stairs.

  Chapter One

  The warning tones sounded almost apologetic, as if hesitant to disturb the tranquility inside lunar transit vehicle LTV-7, yet their very existence grated on Jeremiah Jones’ nerves. On the monitor before him, he spotted the cause of the alarm: a small meteoroid shower they had to pass through to reach the south pole of the Moon. He gripped the armrest firmly as he glanced about the cabin, wondering again how his fellow passengers could remain so calm when the ship might explode at any moment.

  Beside him, Jack Marschenko, the big Elite Ops trooper who had once been his enemy, chuckled. “Man, you are somethin’ else.”

  “What?” Jeremiah asked.

  “It’s like you’ve never flown before. You’re green. And not pretty green either. You’re kind of a frog green. All that animal DNA inside you—you might move like a cat but you definitely got some frog in the mix too. I bet you’re wishing you were more like me right about now.”

  Jeremiah smiled. “A machine? Full of rusty nuts and bolts? I don’t think so, Frank. You’re the one who’s jealous.”

  “Stop calling me Frank, froggycat, or I’ll sing Sinatra songs until we reach the Moon.” He cleared his throat and began to sing: “Fly me to the Moon—”

  Jeremiah laughed. “No. Please. I apologize.”

  “Why don’t you get some sleep? I can’t believe you haven’t closed your eyes the whole flight.”

  “How can I sleep with all those warnings going off?”

  “This one’s no different than the last seventeen. If it ain’t meteoroid showers, it’s space debris or some malfunctioning sensor. Just relax. We’re not gonna die yet. Look behind you,” Marschenko pointed across the aisle, one row back, where a young couple and their two daughters—Kyler and Kaylee, Jeremiah remembered from overheard conv
ersations—exited their seats and made their way to the observation window. “They’re not scared.”

  “They don’t know how much danger they’re in.”

  “Could be worse. Could be on Earth. I still can’t believe someone blew up the Jefferson Memorial. Who do you think it was?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Marschenko lowered his voice: “What do your contacts in CINTEP say?”

  “I’m out of that,” Jeremiah replied. He had once been a ghost for CINTEP—the Center for International Economic Policy: a secret organization founded to perform necessary, often illegal actions in the interests of the United States.

  He found it difficult to think about anything other than crashing or having the ship explode. Why was he so afraid of flying? Was it simply having to cede control? He blinked rapidly three times. A trick he’d taught himself. He visualized himself in a stone dungeon, free of all pain, all fear. Centered. Insulated. It was a way of re-creating himself as nothing more than a machine. Cold steel. He sat on the metal cot and looked down at the brick floor, faintly illuminated by a torch on the wall. He knew every inch of his mentally constructed dungeon.

  “Think about your son,” Marschenko said, noticing his distress. “That’s what you gotta focus on.”

  “I’m okay now.”

  “Good. Check out the monitor.” Marschenko described the scene as Jeremiah glanced over: “Lunar Base 1 is coming into view. A large hangar with a plas-glass ceiling. You can’t see the caverns and tunnels that branch out from the main hangar, but you can see the greenhouses. And there’s Malapert Mountain, near the Shackleton Crater, with its mass of solar panels that provide most of the Moon’s power. Did you know that the southern polar region is in almost perpetual daytime, except for the bottoms of some of the craters, which are in perpetual darkness?”

  “You a lunar expert now?” Jeremiah said.

  “Been studyin’ a bit,” Marschenko said. “Mostly, the Moon’s what you’d expect—a lot of dark rock and dust. Oh, and there’s Lunar Base 2. Smaller. But you can see the Mars transport ship standing next to it. That’ll be where the pseudos are.”

  Psuedos. Marschenko pronounced the word like an obscenity.

  “Escala,” Jeremiah corrected, putting the emphasis on the second syllable like the Escala did, as if by using their proper name he might quell the surge of anger pulsing through him. “They call themselves Escala. And I’m one too.”

  “Yeah,” Marschenko acknowledged. “I know. The next generation Escala. New and improved, now with frog DNA.” Marschenko smirked. “You ever eat a fly?”

  Jeremiah laughed.

  “You don’t look much like them,” Marschenko said, “the ones headed for Mars.”

  “When Eli modified my DNA—”

  “Without your knowledge or consent,” Marschenko interrupted with a grin.

  “Without my knowledge or consent,” Jeremiah agreed, “he intended for me to function on Earth, not in an alien environment.”

  “Well, they look like apes,” Marschenko said, “huge and hairy. And weren’t they engineered to require radiation?”

  Jeremiah nodded. Part of him wanted to punch Marschenko; part of him wanted to cry. He was sitting here next to practically his only friend—the man who helped him discover that Joshua was being held on the Moon. That had taken six months. Jeremiah took another five obtaining the necessary travel permits, while Marschenko applied for an opening in security on the Moon, knowing they wanted Elite Ops troopers there. He delayed his assignment so they could travel together.

  Jeremiah shifted in his seat. Something jabbed his thigh. Reaching down, he pulled out the miniature statue he’d pocketed before leaving Earth and held it up to the light.

  “Is that a copy of Emerging Man?” Marschenko said.

  “Cool, huh?”

  “Hard to believe so much fuss has been made about one statue,” Marschenko said. “Can I see it?” He held out his hand and Jeremiah gave him the statue. It was only six inches long—a replica of a famous statue on Earth. It depicted a man emerging from the ground, his lower body almost unrecognizable as human, his upper body increasingly detailed the farther he pulled himself free of the rock beneath him. The strain of effort showed in his muscles, while his face bespoke a kind of torment. This copy was made from the shards of two different kinds of stone, fused together—jagged pieces somehow forming a whole that seemed appropriate—one type of rock black and gray; the other blue, teal and ivory. The statue, polished to a high sheen, practically glowed.

  “So this represents the evolution of humans into pseudos . . . sorry, Escala?” Marschenko asked.

  “That’s how some see it,” Jeremiah said.

  Marschenko handed it back. “Reminds me of those Venus figurines we studied in school. Prehistoric statuettes.”

  “It’s a dolly,” Kaylee said. The little girl had wandered up from the observation window and stood in the aisle beside their seats, reaching for the statue.

  “Kaylee,” her mother called. “Come back here.”

  Kaylee pulled her hand back and waved goodbye before scampering back toward the observation window. Jeremiah put the statue back in his pocket.

  “Get some sleep,” Marschenko said.

  “Wasted effort,” Jeremiah said as he took a sip of nutri-water. He tasted a hint of raspberry and ginger. At that moment, the warning tones ceased their intrusion, replaced by soft string music and the quiet susurrations of water lapping against the shore.

  “There,” Marschenko said. “Crisis averted.” He jerked his thumb back toward the observation area. “Well, if you’re not gonna sleep, you gotta look out the window at least once before we land. Conquer your fear and all that. Won’t get another chance if they kill us up there. And if you don’t do it, I’m gonna tell everyone you’re a pansy. Maybe I’ll sing a song about it.” Softly he sang, “And now, the end is near, my friend, you’re just, a great big pansy . . .”

  “Okay, Frank. I surrender.” Jeremiah made sure his dungeon was tightly sealed, took a deep breath, got to his feet and looked down the length of the ship, where most of the passengers sat quietly, engrossing themselves with the monitors, watching the looming Moon. Jeremiah’s mock-gravity flight suit kept his body at an approximation of 1G by using electromagnetic sensors drawn to the flight deck, so standing and walking were little different than on Earth. Yet his knees felt weak after two days in the ship. Or was it because of his trepidation at being in space?

  He made his way down the aisle to the observation window, where the young couple stood with their daughters Kyler and Kaylee, looking back at Earth. They’d pulled their hoods off, making their heads weightless. The father was tall and slim, with dark hair and eyes. The mother was blond, with blue eyes. She smelled of honeysuckle. Both wore interfaces on their right temples. Kyler—maybe nine or ten, about the same age as Joshua—looked up at Jeremiah. She had her mother’s hair, her father’s eyes. Kaylee—no more than five—buried her face in her mother’s pants, leaving only her dark curly hair visible. As the parents spotted Jeremiah, they moved aside to allow him access.

  “Do we have to sit down now?” Kyler said.

  “Our turn is over,” her father said.

  “That’s okay,” Jeremiah said, avoiding looking out the window. “There’s plenty of room.”

  “Why are you going to the Moon?” Kyler asked.

  “To see my son.” Jeremiah felt his dungeon collapsing. He blinked again and without knowing why reached out to touch the older daughter’s head. Before his hand reached her, he yanked it back. “His name’s Joshua. He’s about your age.”

  “You look sad,” Kyler said. “Are you going to cry?”

  “Kyler!” the mother said. “Why would you say that?”

  “It’s all right,” Jeremiah said. He went to one knee, putting his face level with Kyler’s. “I am sad
. I miss him. I haven’t seen him for a long time.”

  The father put his hand on Kyler’s shoulder and said, “Is he with his mother?”

  Jeremiah stood slowly, shaking his head. “He’s had some medical issues. I’m taking him home.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” the mother said.

  The father said, “What kind of medical facility on the Moon is treating him?”

  “Brian,” the mother said.

  “Sorry,” Brian replied. He grabbed Kyler’s hand. “None of my business. Enjoy the view. Come along, Kyler.”

  “But he said we could stay.”

  Kyler’s mother pointed a finger at her. “Now don’t make a scene.”

  Kyler whined as her parents dragged her away from the window. Her parents shushed her as they hustled the girls back to their seats.

  Jeremiah forced himself to look out the window at Earth—a huge marble of blue, with swirls of white against a star-studded black backdrop. Jeremiah expected his stomach to protest, but the planet looked so far away that it bordered on the unreal. Perhaps this flying thing wasn’t so bad after all. He marveled at how beautifully peaceful Earth appeared from here—its human population invisible, its wars too small to detect. His stomach fluttered and he felt the old panic returning. Breath quickening, throat dry, he used a hand to brace himself against the side of the cabin. He closed his eyes and heard a quiet shuffling. When he opened them, he caught an image of Marschenko behind him in the window.

  “You want a puke bag?” Marschenko said as he held up an airsickness bag.

  Jeremiah shook his head.

  Marschenko tilted his head and looked back to where Kyler was still protesting to her parents. “You sure know how to make the girls happy. First Lendra, now her.”

  Jeremiah studied Marschenko’s reflection in the window. The Elite Ops trooper stood several inches taller than Jeremiah, maybe thirty pounds heavier. Because of his green flight suit, only his face and hands reflected back clearly. An aquiline nose and brown eyes made him look predatory, though he wore a broad grin at the moment.