The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  He didn’t mind dying. Devereaux had prepared him for this moment. His biggest regret, apart from losing Lendra, was losing the two kids—Kyler and Kaylee. They didn’t deserve to die like this. He wished . . .

  * * *

  He awoke in a brightly lit hospital room. A stranger looked down at him.

  “You’ll be all right,” the man said in heavily accented English.

  Truman put out his hand and touched the man. “Where am I?”

  “Hospital Santa Lucia,” the man said. “My name’s Rivera.”

  “On Earth?”

  Rivera smiled. “Yes, Brazil.”

  “What happened?”

  A dark-haired woman walked in the door, and Rivera stepped to the side.

  “What’s going on?” Truman asked.

  The woman said, “My name is Dr. Silvestres. You were clinically dead when they found you. Out of oxygen. Fortunately, our scanners show only minor brain damage—some memory loss, some cognitive processing difficulty. Had they found you a few minutes later they wouldn’t have been able to revive you. We’ve been flushing neo-dopamine out of your system—re-oxygenating your body. I doubt you’ll suffer permanent harm.” She checked a machine beside Truman’s bed. “We hope to cleanse your system completely. You may experience some fatigue.”

  “I don’t care about me. Tell me what happened up there.”

  Dr. Silvestres smiled. “I’ll leave that to your countrymen.” She turned to the door and in came Jeremiah Jones in a wheelchair, pushed by Mottz. Beside them walked Lendra. Truman thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  Lendra took the chair by his bed and reached out her hand. When they touched, he felt a tiny electrical shock. She smiled as her thumb caressed the back of his hand. For a moment he just enjoyed the feel of her warm skin against his, the faint, flowery aroma of her perfume, the obvious pleasure she took in his company. Then he remembered Jeremiah, the father of the child growing inside her, and he turned to face Jones.

  “You two belong together,” Jeremiah said. “Lendra and I talked while we were waiting for you to wake up. We resolved some issues. I hope you’ll both be happy.”

  Truman looked at Lendra again. She pulled his hand to her lips and kissed it. He pulled her hand to his lips and returned the kiss, then said, “But what happened up there?”

  Lendra turned to Jeremiah, who looked up at Mottz.

  “They found us,” Mottz said, “not long after we patched up your helmet. We thought you were dead. Everybody else made it, Colonel—the Verlorens and even the Russians. You did good. They rescued sixty-eight people from LB3. LB2 wasn’t too badly damaged. A lot of people stayed behind to try to rebuild the colony from there.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “A week,” Jeremiah said.

  “Joffer?”

  Mottz said, “He’s in jail with Zora, Curtik and the other cadets.”

  Truman looked at Jeremiah. “We wouldn’t have survived without Joffer.”

  Jeremiah shrugged. “I’m not the one you have to convince. They’ll convene a secret tribunal to determine the cadets’ future. Devereaux believes—”

  “Devereaux’s okay?”

  “Yes, he’s fine.”

  “He saved me.” Truman closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he looked Jeremiah in the eye and said, “I’d like to thank him.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Jeremiah said. “Anyway, he believes the cadets’ childhood can be restored in part, if they so desire. Their aging can be slowed—their reflexes, strength, endurance: all humanized. He believes they may be spared punishment if they agree to the genetic and nanotech corrections to restore their original makeup. They’ll never completely regain what they lost—their bodies are largely adult bodies, after all—but they might be able to salvage some snippet of their childhood. Still, it’ll be up to politicians to decide their fate. And there are rumblings among a few in the military that the cadets should remain as they are, with the potential to be super warriors.”

  “Curtik?”

  “He told me he won’t revert to his childhood. And if I try to force him, he’ll never speak to me again.”

  “Zora?”

  “She won’t go back either. She’s determined to accept her punishment. I think that’s partly because her parents died recently—victims of the Susquehanna Virus.”

  “And you?” Truman asked.

  “I’m retired. They’re offering you the same option—a medical discharge with a full pension that should allow you to pursue whatever second career you choose. You don’t have to decide now.”

  Truman felt stunned. He’d devoted so many years to the Army.

  “There’s one other piece of good news.” Jeremiah turned to look up at Mottz, who walked over to the door and gestured to someone outside. A few seconds later, an older black man walked in: short, bald and slender, with a wide smile. It took Truman a couple seconds to recognize him.

  “Ned?”

  “Hi, Dez.” Ned stepped over to the bed. “Officially I’m not here, okay?”

  “But how, I mean . . .” Truman couldn’t believe this was happening. How could his brother be alive after all this time? Why hadn’t he let Truman know he was okay?

  “Ah, you still have the gift of gab, I see.” Ned put a hand on Truman’s shoulder and gently squeezed. “When I saw you on the news, I wanted to get in touch. I contacted Jeremiah and he made it happen. I’m still officially missing in action so you can’t tell anyone about this but I’ve got a few hours before I have to leave.”

  “That’s my cue,” Lendra said as she stood up. “I’ll let you two get reacquainted.”

  Truman released Lendra’s hand. He turned to thank Jeremiah, but Mottz must have already wheeled him out.

  Ned waved as Lendra departed. “I guess we’ve got some catching up to do, baby brother.”

  Truman struggled to keep his eyes open. “I’d like to talk, Ned. But I’m so tired.”

  “That’s okay, Dez. You sleep. We’ll talk later. I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

  Chapter Thiry-Four

  Devereaux would give his Nobel Prize speech soon.

  Curtik planned to march out of the room just before it started. He bounced as he stared at the Blue Ridge Mountains, which Jeremiah called beautiful. To Curtik they just looked like tree-covered mountains—green and brown under a blue and white sky. What makes them beautiful? Curtik glanced at Hannah the Barbarian, doing isometric exercises as she studied the security monitors. He walked outside to the edge of the porch and looked down the winding gravel driveway. He examined the curve about a quarter mile away, where he’d fainted the last time he tried to run. His ankle monitor zapped him with something and out he went. Boom. The previous time he’d run he’d gone toward the mountains and had gotten only slightly further before waking up in bed with a massive headache.

  Probably that bitch Hannah had carried him inside. She looked like an Elite Ops trooper—a blond Amazon.

  He stepped back inside the house and glared at her until she scowled back. He liked knowing that she hated being here as much as he did.

  Curtik wanted to see this world he’d tried to destroy—to see if it matched the one he’d been taught to despise. But apparently he would be stuck here with Jeremiah for a while longer. He turned to the nearest surveillance camera and said, “Just get the damn thing over with. I’m guilty. I admit it. Put me in jail for the rest of my life. Kill me. I don’t care.”

  Jeremiah wheeled himself into the room. For some reason his legs had worsened and he was feeling pain in every joint again too. He’d been in contact with Devereaux often, but apparently even God Himself couldn’t find a solution. “You don’t want to be saying that,” Jeremiah said. “Look around you. You’re in a nice house.”

  “And if I try to leave, I get
knocked out and dragged back inside. I gotta spend all my time with you and Hannah Banana over there. They deactivated my implant so I can’t keep in touch with anyone from the old days.”

  “It’s just until the hearing.”

  “Well, what’s taking so long? I’m guilty. Everybody knows it.”

  “You were under a compulsion. You had very little control over your actions.”

  “I knew what I was doing. I wanted to wipe out humanity.”

  “But why? You don’t know, because you were doing what Eli programmed you to do. No matter how you try to twist it or change it, you were under his control. Now you’re free. You don’t need to dwell on what happened. They have ways of wiping your memories. You don’t have to live with what you—”

  “You make it sound so simple. Take a pill and forget the past. You just want your little boy back. But he’s dead—forever—and there’s nothing you can do about that . . . unless you figure out some way to turn me back into a little kid again.”

  “I’m not complaining. You’re my son and I love you no matter what. I just hate seeing you suffer.”

  “Who says I’m suffering?”

  Curtik turned away and looked out the picture window. This father of his didn’t realize that he was happy being Curtik. Should he tell Jeremiah that he liked being the toughest, baddest cadet they’d ever created? No. Jeremiah might be smarter than the average idiot, but he still wouldn’t understand.

  The mountains rose up in shades of brown and green. Did people find those earthtone colors soothing? He wished he could access his implant to find out. The smells were different though, not like the purified air on the Moon. There was a heaviness to them, as if the greater gravity of Earth lent them more complexity. He wasn’t sure he liked that.

  What he desired was to be left alone. Even though Jeremiah and Hannah the Barbarian largely let him do as he pleased, he still wanted to be away from here so he could figure out why he felt this way. He found himself conflicted since they’d reached Earth—part of him glad that Jones hadn’t died, part of him detesting those warm feelings. He found it difficult to even pretend to be Jeremiah’s son. “I’m my own man,” he said as he looked out the window, “forged and honed on the Moon, the next generation of human. I’m not part of your world.”

  “From now on you are,” Jeremiah said. “You might as well get used to it.”

  How much simpler life was when all he wanted to do was kill—when everyone he knew was either target or tool. This whole issue of ethics and morality troubled him. Were people like Jeremiah as good as they seemed to be or were they just better at hiding their darker urges? It didn’t matter. Soon they’d either put him down or lock him away—and that might be for the best.

  Jeremiah switched on the television and said, “I’m going to watch Devereaux’s speech.”

  “What’s he babbling about now?”

  “He won a Nobel peace prize.”

  “Another one?” Curtik pretended ignorance.

  Jeremiah nodded. “While he was on the Moon.”

  “Sounds scintillating,” Curtik said.

  “You don’t have to watch it.”

  As the man on the dais spoke to the auditorium filled with tuxedo-clad men and long-gowned women, listing Devereaux’s many accomplishments, Curtik prepared to leave. He intended to walk out with Devereaux’s first words. No doubt they would be platitudes about how wonderful everything and everybody was here on Earth and how, with a little effort, we could all get along. On the other hand, one never knew with God Himself.

  Curtik wished he had positioned himself further inside the house. It would have made for a more dramatic exit if he wasn’t leaning against the doorway.

  Then God Himself spoke:

  “We’re walking through the fog toward the edge of a cliff,” Devereaux said, looking sad, “and if we don’t veer away from our course soon, we will fall to our doom. Our future is not without hope. Global peace looks more achievable today than it did even a month ago. These past few weeks, the nations of the world have united to clean up the mess left by a madman who practiced unspeakable evil, unsurpassed genocide.”

  “Genocide?” Curtik said. “Is that the right word?”

  “Shh,” Hannah said.

  “Never in recent decades,” Devereaux said, “have we been this focused, this compassionate. Many nations have contributed to the effort to save not only the people of the Moon but also those here on Earth who were so needlessly attacked by this puppetmaster. Millions died, but millions more are being saved by the actions of all of you who have come together to heal our tragic wounds.”

  “Tragic wounds,” Curtik echoed.

  “Yours are on the inside,” Jeremiah said.

  “They don’t hurt.”

  Devereaux continued: “I wish to especially commend the Brazilians for their expertise and manpower. Because of their leadership, we were able to rescue more than half the lunar colony. And I would like to note those brave souls who did not survive the madness—people like Colonel Dez Truman, who sacrificed himself so that others might live. Can you imagine being in his position? Facing certain death? He did not panic. He did not lash out or risk the lives of others to buy a precious few more minutes, even though—as we now know—he might have been saved had he done so. Instead, he embraced the darkness for the sake of the people he was charged with protecting. I wonder how many of us could be that brave. I wonder if I could be that brave. Could you?”

  Devereaux paused for a moment.

  “I could,” Curtik said.

  “Now, maybe,” Jeremiah said. “Will you still be that brave when you stand to lose what he lost?”

  Hannah said, “Can’t you just listen to the man? You might learn something.”

  “His is the example we must try to follow,” Devereaux continued, “rejecting fear and selfishness, thinking beyond the immediate moment, helping others who cannot help themselves, looking to the world around us and asking how we can make this planet a better place. How can we ensure a sustainable home for our children and grandchildren, for our nieces and nephews, for strangers we’ll never meet who deserve as good a life as any of us, for the millions who will come after us, generation after generation?

  “This world was not put here for me. It wasn’t put here for you. It’s here for all of us and none of us. We just borrow it for a while. Would you borrow your neighbor’s hammer and let it rust? Would you borrow a ladder and fail to return it? That’s what we do when we take from this world without repaying our debt.

  “I’m not asking us to be perfect. We don’t have to do it alone. That’s what governments and the rule of law are for—to keep us on the straight path when we might otherwise stray. But we cannot rely only on them. We must act ourselves—taking one step . . . and then another . . . and then another, striving to become better human beings, aware of our selfish selves even as we fight to transcend that egoism to attain an altruism that marks the nobility and strength our species is capable of attaining. With every thought, with every desire, we must consider the world and our fellow creatures within it and how our actions might impact them for good or ill.”

  “Impact. Pow!”

  “Shh,” Hannah said again.

  “Can we consider the needs of others as much as we do our own? Or will we succumb to the narrow-minded greed that resides at the bottom of our nature? Colonel Truman was able to overcome that desire with his last breath. But can we?”

  Devereaux wiped his face with a handkerchief, reached for a glass and took a sip of water.

  “Cripes,” Curtik said, “all he did was die.”

  “Some of you may be saying to yourselves, ‘What did he do that was so special? He didn’t fight back a horde of alien invaders or stop the spread of a terrible virus. He didn’t save those people. The Brazilians did. There were other more heroic people who saved many more liv
es than he did.’”

  “He’s reading my mind,” Curtik muttered.

  “Please,” Jeremiah said as he held up a finger.

  “And to that,” Devereaux continued, “I answer, ‘Yes, there were.’ There were many heroic people on both the Earth and the Moon—some of whom did much more than he did, much more than I did—cadets and Elite Ops troopers and civilians alike. Some of you are still doing more, still giving above and beyond what any of us has a right to ask, while all Colonel Truman did was stop himself from grabbing, clutching, grasping at life no matter who he hurt, knowing that by his one insignificant choice not to act, he might save eleven lives. And so he did.

  “And that’s what we can do too. We must work together in small ways to improve our chances of success. We must form groups, teams, families of supporters to assist us—people willing to speak the hard truths that will goad us or shame us or motivate us to take the tiny actions that snowball into larger efforts that avalanche into monumental achievements of which we can all be proud. We can cooperate in the fight to regress from our heavy-handed consumerism.

  “But we must start now.

  “If we fail, we join the dinosaurs. And who will know that we were here? Perhaps some future species will dig us up one day and wonder what brought us to extinction—what tragedy befell us. In time they may discover that it was our failure to adapt, our failure to appropriately plan for the future that caused our demise. We have been short-term thinkers for millennia. But we can no longer afford that luxury. We cannot worry only about today and tomorrow, for the sun will rise next week, next month, next year. Will our descendants be here to greet it?

  “Make no mistake. We will fail . . . from time to time. But if we abide by the Golden Rule, if we surrender to the inescapable truth that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, we just may succeed in the end.

  “Peace isn’t just about the avoidance of war. It’s about a total commitment to protect and preserve our communal home from our own baser instincts—from our self-destructive tendencies masquerading as individual rights. We can no longer afford to indulge our narrow political and religious ideologies. We cannot push our conservative or liberal doctrines, nor can we discount the spiritual beliefs of others as misguided or inappropriate. We have to push beyond these self-imposed boundaries to a new world of inclusiveness. We all have a duty to protect our children from ourselves. Too often we think in terms of us and them. We are good and they are evil. We are right and they are wrong. But just as we don’t want them telling us how to live our lives, we can’t tell them how to live theirs—provided that no one is being harmed.”