The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  Martinez returned to Santoso, who drove half a block away and waited by the curb. For a minute Ivra’s signal didn’t move. Ned tried to ignore the incoming signals from Martinez, instead focusing on the darkened room around him: Jenrie monitoring his condition, the two technicians sitting quietly at their stations against the wall. Then Ivra was moving again, back to the north for a second time, toward the same neighborhood they’d just left. Ned felt a surge of adrenaline, or maybe it was the neo-dopamine boost. He sensed that Ivra was leading Martinez to the cell.

  “I think this is it,” he said. Turning his head to Jenrie, he added, “Tell the Elite Ops to suit up.”

  Ivra’s Ojek stopped beside an open lot surrounded by onlookers. As her driver sped off, Ivra sidled to an opening in the crowd and stared through the chain-link fence at rows of corpses, where a group of city workers had parked a large incinerator truck that burned the bodies one at a time. Santoso pulled to the side of the road and Martinez disembarked, grabbing the scanner/tracker from Santoso as he did so.

  “Thanks, muchacho,” Martinez said. “You’d better grab that Ojek driver. He might be involved, or infected.”

  As Santoso followed the other Ojek driver, Martinez neared the lot, where another group of city workers wheeled in more bodies, unloading them respectfully, laying them in rows beside one another.

  “Like Dante’s Inferno,” Martinez said.

  “Awful,” Ned agreed.

  For a moment Ivra watched a worker cataloging information on the new corpses. After a few seconds, Martinez sat on a stone bench at the edge of the sidewalk. Ned’s breaths came more raggedly, more painfully. Was that Martinez struggling to breathe? It had to be. Ned hadn’t realized just how far gone Martinez was.

  “She’s not moving,” Martinez said needlessly. “Like she’s happy watching the horror she wrought.”

  “I think she’s making sure she’s alone.”

  And suddenly Ivra began moving again, heading toward a building across the street: a four-story office structure. Ned checked his Interactive Map to identify the building’s inhabitants. He said, “It’s called the Jakarta Coalition for Disease Prevention.”

  “The bastards have a sense of humor,” Martinez said.

  Ivra looked around briefly before entering the building but Martinez held his ground. Ivra’s signature disappeared from the scanner/tracker, the building obviously protected by a dampening field.

  “This has to be it,” Martinez said.

  “Copy,” Ned answered. He gestured to Jenrie. “Elite Ops are on their way.”

  “I’m going in now.”

  “I think you should wait for the Elite Ops.”

  “Sorry, Ned. I’ll try to take out their dampening field so we have some idea what the Elite Ops are walking into.”

  “Hector, they’ll be there in less than ten minutes.”

  “Roger that.” Martinez pulled his backpack off and armed the neuro-tingler bomb it held. Then he extracted two Las-pistols. Finally he removed another couple neo-dopamine pills from his pocket and bit down on them, chewing them into small pieces. Even so, he could barely swallow them.

  “You don’t have to go in alone, Hector,” Ned said.

  “You’re a good man, Ned—no matter what they say.” Martinez laughed.

  Another rush of warmth and energy flooded Ned, even as he shivered with fear.

  Martinez hoisted the backpack onto his shoulders once again. The load felt heavy. How much of that was Martinez and how much was his own trepidation at what would happen if Martinez detonated the neuro-tingler bomb? From what Ned understood, the device disrupted the body’s cells with cascading electrical impulses that were excruciating and lethal. He’d never seen one used before, though he’d seen the results of a detonation on dogs and cats—their bodies contorted in agony.

  “Hector,” Ned said again, though he suspected Martinez wasn’t listening anymore. He’d probably set the audio to one-way.

  “Boosting transmitter power to maximum,” Martinez said as he followed Ivra into the building. The signal weakened, breaking up occasionally, like watching an old vid with scratches and static. Ned almost felt like he was winking in and out of existence as Martinez glanced left and right across the lobby. By the time Ned realized that Martinez had spotted the security guard, Martinez had drawn his weapon and shot the man in the chest—a red laser pulse. The guard dropped.

  Martinez checked his scanner/tracker again. Ned saw that Ivra had climbed up one flight. Adjusting the scanner/tracker, Martinez studied the bioelectrical signatures. Most of the energy output came from the second and third floors. There were at least a dozen people inside. The power signature of the field dampener appeared to emanate from the second floor. As Martinez climbed, Ned’s legs twitched, as if he were climbing three or four steps at a time. The signal broke up more frequently now as the dampening field weakened the signal.

  Martinez reached the second floor and broke into a painful run. He turned right, the sights and sounds flickering in and out, a strobe effect of sight and sound that would have knocked Ned to the floor if he’d been standing. Through the intermittent connection, it appeared that Martinez was following the trail Ivra had left. He went down a dark hallway—tenths of seconds dropping from each image. Ned struggled not to vomit. Finally Martinez reached an open doorway, where Ivra stood in a laboratory with a handful of other people, various machines on the counters. The people clustered before a screen, on which a woman spoke. Ned could make out only a few words: “. . . three . . . intense . . . dispersal—” The woman’s voice broke off as she spotted Martinez.

  Martinez fired the Las-pistols, blue stun pulses, as the six people in front of him tried to dive out of the way. An alarm sounded, no doubt triggered by the woman on the screen, who disappeared as the screen went black. Martinez kneeled beside a cabinet, firing pulse after pulse, using only the low-power setting. Good man, Ned thought, but didn’t say. Take them alive if you can.

  A young man in a white lab jacket, who had dropped behind a chair, fired a red laser pulse at Martinez, narrowly missing—at least Ned thought he missed. He couldn’t sense any pain from Martinez. The connection vanished for a second. When it returned, Martinez fired a red pulse into the man’s chest. Ned couldn’t tell how many had been taken out. He thought four had been stunned and one was dead, but where was the sixth person?

  Ned heard a small scraping sound to his left. A brown pant leg vanished behind a counter. Martinez ran forward, his knees nearly giving out, the image cutting out again. When it returned, Ned saw a blue stun pulse firing into the stomach of a dark-haired, middle-aged woman, who dropped to the floor unconscious. She looked vaguely like the computer-generated image of Susquehanna Sally. Could that really be her? Ned transmitted her image to CINTEP.

  He felt light-headed, and at the same time he experienced a heavy pressure in his chest that made breathing difficult. Dr. Poole had told Ned that the stress of battle might accelerate the virus’ progress. Martinez knew that. Was that why he chose to charge the cell without waiting for backup? Or did he want a chance to search for an antidote?

  On the scanner, bioelectric signatures clumped together one floor above Martinez.

  “Elite Ops will be there soon,” Ned offered, in case Martinez could hear him.

  Martinez lifted his head and then the image stopped for perhaps three seconds—three seconds that seemed like a minute. When the connection was restored, Ned saw nothing he could identify as a field dampener.

  “The field dampener, Hector,” Ned called out.

  Taking several deep breaths, Martinez strode toward Ivra. Again the image dropped for a second or two. When it returned, Martinez had Ivra by the neck. He shook her, keeping an eye on the doorway from where the reinforcements would attack. While Martinez waited for her to waken, he studied the room, the shelves and the counters. What was he looking for?
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br />   As the image went black again, Ned began repeating himself over and over: “The field dampener, Hector, the field dampener.”

  Back came the image.

  Martinez let Ivra’s head fall to the floor, slapped her hard several times until she started to moan. Then he grabbed her by the neck again, keeping a Las-pistol lined up on the doorway, set to full power. When Ivra’s eyes focused on his, he snarled, “Where’s the antidote?”

  “What?”

  “The antidote, girlie,” Martinez snarled.

  “There’s no antidote,” she said.

  “Liar! Where’s the antidote?” Martinez punched her in the face. Ned reached for Martinez’s arm to try to stop him, knowing even as he did so that it was idiotic—like trying to touch a holo-projection. To have these additional limbs and not be able to control them was infuriating.

  As Ivra screamed, Martinez yelled, “Where is it?”

  Ivra said, “There is none.”

  The signal cut out again. When it returned, Martinez broke the girl’s middle finger and she screamed again. “Stupid bitch. What’s your name?”

  “Sally16.”

  “Cute. Well, Sally16, I’m going to torture you until you tell me the truth.” He slammed her head into the floor. Ned winced. He knew she was a terrorist, a murderer, and yet he still struggled with the violence of Martinez’s assault.

  Finally Martinez grabbed his scanner/tracker. He adjusted the setting until he found what appeared to be the field dampener coming from four small speakers in the corners of the room. He fired four red pulses at the units and the field dampener winked out.

  Now Ned was completely back inside Hector’s body. He felt a powerful urge to vomit and managed to turn his head to the side before puking. Jenrie jumped out of the way. “ETA five minutes,” she said.

  Wiping his mouth, Ned said, “You did it, Hector. Well done.”

  “You getting this?” Martinez asked.

  “I got you,” Ned replied. “The Elite Ops will be there in five minutes.”

  Martinez didn’t seem to hear him. He turned toward the doorway as several purple pulses—medium setting, probably to protect the lab as much as possible—fired at him from the darkness beyond. He took one to the stomach. A blistering, stabbing pain knocked him to the floor and caused Ned to cry out in pain. That should have knocked Martinez unconscious. It would have if he hadn’t taken so much neo-dopamine.

  Martinez found cover behind an island counter. He reached around it and fired his Las-pistols into the darkness.

  The people in the room began to stir, groggily sitting up. More purple pulses flashed from the darkened doorway. Soon the reinforcements would set their Las-weapons on high and charge. Ned was surprised they hadn’t done so already.

  “Hang on, Hector,” Ned begged.

  Martinez leaned back against the counter, his body hot all over. He began to sweat profusely. His hands shook. He grew dizzy. The Susquehanna Virus would soon overwhelm him. He reached for the backpack.

  “Hasta luego, Ned.”

  “Hector,” Ned shouted.

  Martinez fired at the doorway again. He missed, the red pulses from his weapons going through the walls and eliciting screams from the other side. He pulled the remaining supply of neo-dopamine out of his pocket and put the tablets in his mouth. Chewing and swallowing, he began to fade a little, though the pain diminished too.

  Red pulses shot toward Martinez from the doorway. They began slicing through the counter over his head, pinning him down.

  “You’re going to die,” Sally16 said. She sat up, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.

  As the reinforcements charged the room, Martinez detonated the neuro-tingler bomb. Despite the overdose of neo-dopamine and the slightly degraded signal from the transfer, Ned still felt the searing heat, the intense prickling agony of a million white-hot needles piercing every skin cell. His body felt like it was being ripped apart. He grunted, curling up in a ball as all around him the cell members screamed. Then the sensory link connection went dark.

  Ned felt instantaneous relief, and at the same time an almost uncontrollable urge to cry as loneliness engulfed him. One second he was two people, bound together. The next, he was alone, and Hector Martinez was no more. He wanted to be angry with Hector. He wanted to rage at the injustice of it all. And yet if their places had been reversed, he might have done the same.

  “It’s over,” he said to Jenrie as he removed the helmet. “Sorry about the mess.”

  Chapter 5

  Lendra Riley, acting head of CINTEP—the Center for International Economic Policy, which purportedly worked to open free markets worldwide, but actually conducted espionage, anti-terrorism activities and the occasional assassination—sat in her office, fidgeting as she stared at the holo-projections being transmitted from Jakarta. On one of them, three Elite Ops troopers moved through the building Hector Martinez had found. They looked huge, seven-feet tall in their gray armor, their shields glowing ever so slightly as they searched the building for hidden terrorists. The neuro-tingler’s energy had dissipated quickly.

  Martinez, blessedly, had died almost instantaneously. Some of the terrorists, however, were still alive, screaming their throats raw. Lendra wished she didn’t have to listen to their cries.

  On another projection, three more Elite Ops troopers knelt over dying terrorists, using med-kits to try to keep them alive. Dr. Taditha Poole, CINTEP’s chief medical officer, stood in the corner of Lendra’s office next to Jay-Edgar, CINTEP’s technology guru, and relayed instructions to the troopers.

  Poor Hector, Lendra thought. For some reason, the antidote hadn’t worked on him. A team of doctors was analyzing why—too late for him, of course. It should have worked. Jeremiah Jones was immune, and the antidote had been derived from his blood, so why didn’t it work?

  She found it difficult to think over the screaming of the terrorists and asked Jay-Edgar if he could do something about the noise. He silenced the audio feed.

  “Thank you.” Lendra sat back in her chair to collect her thoughts. She tried to ignore the cameras installed by the President, meant to monitor everything that occurred inside CINTEP: the price she paid for her predecessor’s treachery in unleashing Curtik, Zora and the rest of the cadets on Earth last year. Damn Eli!

  And damn Jeremiah for being so uncooperative. Yes, she’d used him, just as Eli had before her. And yes, she’d impregnated herself with his sperm and delivered a baby girl to ensure that his line continued. She’d do it again too. The problem now was that their daughter Sophie had been fighting a fever for days now, with no apparent cause.

  Lendra struggled with how to handle that. Should she take time off work to be with Sophie, or did her responsibilities require her to put her daughter second? She wouldn’t admit this to anyone, but she was far too driven to just stand aside during a time of crisis like this. And there was nothing she could do for Sophie anyway; she wasn’t a doctor like Taditha.

  She glanced at Dr. Poole, who looked darker than usual standing next to the pasty Jay-Edgar, and marveled that two women with African-American blood could be in such positions of power—though she didn’t consider herself black. Her racial heritage included Polynesian and European blood. Still, quite an accomplishment. She might have been prouder of it if her job wasn’t dependent on positive reports from Dr. Poole about her performance.

  Damn Eli again!

  How was she supposed to run CINTEP when Dr. Poole could have her removed at any time for psychological reasons? Or was she just annoyed because Dr. Poole had been a mere operative under Eli’s regime, promoted by President Hope for the sole purpose of determining whether CINTEP should be disbanded, or subsumed into the CIA or NSA? What would she do if President Hope fired her? She had to stay on Dr. Poole’s good side. She decided to check on Sophie.

  Using the interface attached to her left te
mple, she called the nanny. Through the connections to her optic nerve, she saw Isabella standing in the nursery, worry in her dark eyes. Pale blue clouds and multi-colored hot-air balloons moved slowly across the pastel yellow wall behind her. Isabella held up Sophie, who was crying loudly, her face red and puffy, her dark curly hair plastered to her head. “Miss Riley,” Isabella said. “She won’t stop crying. And she’s still running a fever of a hundred and three. Should I call Dr. Poole?”

  “She’s here with me,” Lendra said. She activated the holo-projector in front of her desk so that Sophie could see her. “Hi, Sweetie,” she cooed. “It’s okay, Sweetie. Mommy’s here.” She waved at her daughter, whose crying tailed off for a moment. In the far corner of the nursery, Dr. Poole’s infant son Jack, six weeks younger than Sophie and irritatingly healthy, played with a musical rattle.

  Dr. Poole looked over from where she was giving instructions to the Elite Ops troopers and said, “Do you want to take some time off?”

  “No,” Lendra replied. She refused to give Dr. Poole any more power, any more leverage. She was a professional; the job came first. Dr. Poole would see that as a positive, wouldn’t she?

  Jay-Edgar interrupted: “She didn’t make it.”

  “What?” Lendra asked. She glanced at the holo-projection, where an older woman in a lab coat lay on the floor in a pool of vomit.

  “We need an ID on her ASAP,” Lendra said.

  Sophie began crying again.

  “What should I do?” the nanny asked.

  “Sophie, Sweetie,” Lendra cooed again. “Don’t cry, Sweetie. Isabella, take her to the infirmary, please. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  Lendra disconnected. She knew she ought to be more concerned about Sophie, but she was fighting for her job, and she couldn’t afford to be anything but focused. Besides, Sophie had Jeremiah’s blood in her—blood from before he was infected with the Susquehanna Virus—how sick could she get?