Plague Zone

9

Cam was uncertain at first when Ruth’s face appeared in the gash in the wall. Her curly hair was matted and sweaty. Her skin looked bright red in their flashlights, and her eyes were bloodshot. Some of the men stumbled back. They banged against each other as Greg stiffened with his rifle. “Ruth!?” Greg shouted.

“I’m okay,” she said.

There was a sunburned patch across the right side of her face that began as a remarkably square corner on her temple. Cam realized it was the same shape as the faceplate in her helmet. She’d done it to herself with the UV lamp.

He pushed through the others to reach her. “Careful,” he said. He was still armored in his goggles and face mask, and yet Ruth tried to meet his gaze in the white beams of the flashlights. Then she smiled and ducked back inside with a noise like a laugh.

“Wait!” he yelled.

Her euphoria seemed out of place. Cam wondered if he had the guts to club her if she popped her face into the gap again. Was she infected? But she’s talking, he thought.

“Here,” she said, filling the hole in the wall with her laptop. Her hands fluttered once and then vanished. The black Dell would have fallen if Cam hadn’t dropped his crowbar and caught the laptop instead.

Through the wall, he saw her lab and the plastic tent. Ruth stood very close to him, yanking at something on her desk with lithe, harried movements. Cam finally realized how eager she was to escape and he thought of other times when she hadn’t acted her age, either. Sometimes her intellect was overshadowed by her emotions. In fact, Cam thought that energy was tied directly to her IQ. Part of Ruth’s genius was her ability to tap deep into herself, but her moods could be dangerous, too, childish and loud.

“Help me,” he said, holding the laptop out to the group. No one took it and he barked, “Help me! There’ll be more stuff in a second.”

A man named Matthew grabbed the laptop and Cam turned again just as Ruth muscled her AFM into the gap in the wall.

The atomic force microscope wasn’t much bigger than his thigh, a white metal cylinder with a stout base and a tapered white cone that rose to a single black eyepiece. Cam had always marveled that something so small could design machines of such consequence, but, by its very definition, nanotech was infinitesimal. The AFM housed a power system and a shovelful of microprocessors, yet most of its bulk was only necessary to provide optics and controls that could be used by human beings. The heart of the machine, its computerized tip array and work surface, filled a space no larger than a dime.

The AFM weighed forty pounds, though, and Ruth shoved it through as hard as she could. Cam slumped beneath the device, catching it at an awkward angle against the wall. “Wait!” he shouted. Owen shouldered in beside him. The two of them lugged the microscope away through the debris on the ground. Cam nearly twisted his ankle when he stepped on a chunk of wood and then some loose bricks.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Matthew go to the hole in time to catch two notebooks and Ruth’s containment suit, a yellow wad that spilled its legs and sleeves over Matthew’s body. The air tanks tipped out of Matthew’s grasp and pulled the suit to the ground.

“Jesus, Ruth!” Cam shouted, but she wasn’t listening.

“Cam!” she yelled. “Where is Cam?”

He left the AFM with Owen and another man, running back to the hut. Ruth held a piece of paper. Matthew made as if to grab it, but Ruth shook her head in one violent, sideways motion.

“Cam?” she said, trusting the paper only to him.

He recognized it in a glance. A map. After the war, they’d carried the vial of the parasite nanotech with them. What else could they do? At first they needed it as a goad against the enemy and their own government, forcing both sides to stand down, and then they were caught in another kind of trap. They found a small shockproof case for it, a plastic clamshell meant to hold a pair of glasses, but if the parasite broke loose in an accident — if they were robbed or killed — it would destroy the world again. The vial was too dangerous to leave behind. They wanted to bury it, but what if rain or erosion brought it to the surface? Someone might open it.

They hadn’t found a solution until they settled in Jefferson. They bought an iron box in Morristown and stenciled warnings on it in English, Hebrew, and Russian. Now the vial was buried twelve feet down in the foothills west of town. It would have to stay there. They couldn’t spare two or three hours to dig the box up again, even if the parasite might be exactly what they needed to threaten the Chinese. Could they still bluff the enemy?

“Cam!” Ruth said.

He was staring. He snatched the paper from her and stuffed it into his jacket pocket, freeing his hands again as he tried to think. “What else do we need?”

Her hands scrabbled at the wall, feeling for places to set herself. Then she tumbled forward. Matthew tried to hold her but Ruth fell against the wall, cracking one arm. “Oh!” she cried.

“Ruth, stop! Is there anything else we need in there?”

She flailed through the hole, hanging upside down until Cam snarled his left hand in the back of her shirt. Matthew took her arm. Together they set her on her feet.

Ruth seemed rejuvenated by the cool night air. In the shifting beams of the flashlights, her burnt, naked face looked both excited and vulnerable. There was sweat in her bangs and her breath came hard, lifting her breasts against her shirt. When she leaned against him, Cam hugged her briefly — but he leaned away before she could put her arms around him, too.

She didn’t even turn off the lights in there before she jumped out, he thought, worrying at the illuminated gash in the wall. He realized he hadn’t seen her bring her walkie-talkie, either. Should he climb back inside to get it and kill the lights? That seemed crazy.

“Okay, let’s go,” Ruth said. Her tone was still out of sync with the rest of them, too vibrant, even happy, and Cam sensed the others stirring behind their flashlights.

“Go where?” Owen said.

“East. We can’t hold this place against the plague.”

Greg shook his head. “We made contact with Grand Lake again. We told them everything you said, and they’re sending choppers.”

“For everyone? When?”

“If we’re not here—”

“Bring the radio,” Ruth said. “The helicopters can adjust. But you can’t expect everyone to wait for a rescue that doesn’t exist. Do you really think Grand Lake’s going to send ten choppers?”

They stared at her in the dark.

“No,” Greg said.

Ruth pressed her advantage. “We don’t have the equipment to shelter in place, so we go for Grand Lake. The mountains should stop the infected people! They’re clumsy, disoriented. They won’t follow us.”

How much of that is her claustrophobia talking? Cam wondered. She just wants to move. “The nanotech is airborne,” he said. “It’ll follow us even if they don’t.”

“It’ll be worse where there are carriers! We have to take that chance. Run for high ground.”

“Okay.” Greg nodded slowly and lifted his walkie-talkie to relay Ruth’s demand. “We’re going to pack up and drive east,” he said to the rest of the village.

Most of the people in the sealed huts didn’t want to leave, nor did several of the men and women at the guard posts. “We don’t know what’s out there!” Susan yelled on her walkie-talkie from inside.

“At least here we have a chance to protect ourselves,” Owen said. “Besides, there’s barely any gasoline. How far do you think you can walk after the trucks run dry?”

“You’re not taking the radio!” Susan yelled as other villagers filled Cam’s headset with noise.

“They can‘t—”

“—need it as much as—”

He shut off his headset altogether. Most of their voices were still audible in the night, but the decision bought him a little space as he walked to the nearest sealed hut. Greg, Ruth, and Matthew came with him, but Owen went in another direction, probably looking for his buddy Neil. All of them wanted their closest friends.

“Susan!” Cam said, trying to sound calm even hollering through the plastic. “If you’re smart, you’ll come with us. But the Ranger element is leaving town and that radio is ours.”

Greg rapped on the door. “Tricia! Trish! Let’s go.”

“I don’t think we should leave!” Tricia yelled.

Cam tried another name. “Bobbi?” Could she even hear him? People were arguing and the baby was squalling, too. Cam turned to look past the hut. Two flashlights rocked through the darkness on the east side of the village, and a third winked into view from behind the dining hall. There was also someone yelling in that direction. Cam figured they had a minute at most before Owen showed up with Neil.

“We might have to break in,” he said.

“She’s scared,” Greg said, needlessly explaining for his wife. Cam felt a confused pang of envy and his own protective instincts. In some ways things were easier for him with Allison dead. He had less to lose. But he would fight for his friend’s wife and infant daughter, Hope.

Greg Estey was as solid as anyone Cam had ever known, smart, if quiet, and unconcerned with bullshit like ego or rank. He’d let go of everything from his previous life to fit himself into Jefferson, maintaining only his loyalty to Ruth as he found new ways to define himself. Farmer. Husband. Father. He put his thumb on the SEND button of his walkie-talkie and said, “Bobbi? It’s Greg. Let me talk to Trish, please.”

Cam turned his headset on again as Susan interrupted on the same frequency. “No way!” she said. “There’s no way!”

The door was double-sealed, inside and out. Cam peeled away the plastic sheeting on the outside, but he didn’t want to tear the layers inside. He wanted them to open up themselves. Then the people who stayed behind would have a better chance of resecuring the hut.

The flashlights were on top of them now. Cam winced as one of the beams cut across his face. Another light traced over the front of the hut, lingering on the torn plastic. “You son of a bitch!” Owen yelled. “They were safe in there! You can‘t—”

“Bobbi wants out,” Cam said softly. Behind his flashlight, the other man was only a silhouette, faceless and menacing. “Just let us go,” Cam said. “That’s all we want.”

“The radio stays here,” Owen said.

“No.”

“Owen, we’ll send help if we find it!” Ruth said. “You know we will.”

Greg spoke simultaneously to his walkie-talkie and to the door of the hut. “My family is coming out! You stay if you have to. We’ll even seal the outside of the door for you.”

“Fuck that,” Owen said, also transmitting. “We’ll do it ourselves. Go on. Go.” He jerked his flashlight away from them into the dark, as if casting them out, but his voice had grown rigid and controlled like Cam’s. Owen was willing to accept the compromise, giving them the radio to avoid a fight. Cam’s relief was intense. It also gave way to an impulsive sense of camaraderie, because they were better than their fear. They’d talked it out instead of using their fists.

“Owen, come with us,” he said suddenly.

“Just go,” Owen snapped.

The door opened from the inside. The baby’s screaming got louder and lantern light spilled across the ground, full of shadows. Susan blocked the doorway as Bobbi pushed through with the Harris radio. Bobbi had already put on her jacket and Cam took the radio so she could don her goggles, gloves, mask, and hood.

“You’re making a mistake!” Susan said.

Tricia herself was bare-headed, probably for Hope’s sake. Otherwise the little girl might not recognize her mother. Tears spilled down Tricia’s cheeks as she desperately shushed and cooed at her baby.

“Sweetheart,” Greg said.

Their headsets and walkie-talkies crackled again. “This is Eleven,” a woman said in a whisper. “I see people in the fences. This is Ingrid at Eleven and there are at least twenty people in the fences!”

Everyone froze except Hope. The baby’s angry sounds continued to lift on the wind.

Oh, no, Cam thought.

They’d done it to themselves. The commotion they’d made had been like a giant beacon in the night, yelling at each other and waving lights all over town. Now they’d attracted more infected people from beyond the village.

“Get inside!” Cam shouted. He tried to force Ruth back through the door, but she resisted.

“Let go of me!”

“I love you! Stay here!” Greg yelled at Tricia as the young woman said, “Greg, no—”

Cam and Ruth stared at each other, locked in each other’s grip. The other couple’s words might have been their own, and Ruth said, “I—”

Cam broke away from her as there was a second alert on his headset. “This is Eleven!” the radio whispered again. “They’re caught up in the fences. Should I open fire?”

The channel filled with noise. “No, wait,” Cam said, but Owen and several others were talking on the same frequency.

“—at Two I see them—”

“Light ‘em up.”

“No!” Cam yelled. “No, shut off every light we’ve got!” He and Owen took their first steps toward Station Eleven, but Ruth and Bobbi followed, and Cam whirled to face the two women. “Get back inside!” he said.

In that moment, Owen outpaced him.

“Bobbi,” Cam said. “Stop. Ruth, you go with her and—”

“We can’t hide in there if—”

“Do it!” Cam bellowed in her face before he shoved the radio against Bobbi, weighing her down. “Go inside! Go!”

People were shouting on the north perimeter as their flashlights jabbed and swayed. “Get back!” a man yelled. “Get back or we’ll shoot!”

Two of the villagers stood with their weapons aimed. A third wrestled a floodlight into place. The Bull Dog was a lightweight aluminum tripod with dual five-hundred-watt bulbs. It was the long extension cord that was giving the man trouble. The floods weren’t on yet. There were only flashlights.

At the farthest edge of the beams, human shadows moved in the fences. Cam counted nine, and he hoped Ingrid had exaggerated the threat.

I don’t see twenty people here, he thought.

The strangers banged through the low obstacles. One was stuck in a line of barbed wire, tugging at her left arm. None of them were fast or graceful. Cam’s impression was that of sleepwalkers. Maybe he was too influenced by their clothing. Most of them looked as if they were dressed for bed in loose, warm clothing. One man wore only his underwear. Very few had any shoes. They wore socks or were barefoot. They looked like they’d been taken completely by surprise, rising from their sleep into another kind of dream.

Maybe the ant swarm in Greenhouse 3 had actually saved lives in Jefferson by keeping everyone awake. Otherwise the old woman might have walked among them unchallenged, infecting their guards and then everyone in town.

But why did they come here? Cam wondered. These people had followed the wind southward instead of walking into it. Why? The flashlights couldn’t have been visible until they were within a mile or two of Jefferson. Was it possible they remembered this village? Could the nanotech be that sophisticated? Ruth said Patrick and Linda seemed compelled to move no matter how badly hurt or securely tied. What were they looking for? The safety of family and friends? If so, that would be an unstoppable method of spreading the plague.

Everyone in Morristown might be headed this way.