Plague Zone

5

In the blue light of the display screen, the colonel’s face was ghastly pale. The effect was supernatural. The light transformed his round features into something lean and monstrous, creating shadows like a mask. He used it well, turning to grin at the four technicians beside him. He knew his teeth shone like fangs because Dongmei’s pretty mouth glowed in the same way when she matched his expression.

They were all afraid. He wanted to harness that energy. As a senior officer, Colonel Jia Yuanjun had been trained to browbeat his troops if necessary, driving out weakness, but not every situation called for blunt force. These four were among his select. More importantly, they were right to be nervous, so he’d planned to redirect that adrenaline, binding them to him with aggression and pride. Everyone in the blue light of the flatscreens was very young for this task. They were so lost, too, here on the other side of the world from their home. Colonel Jia was only thirty-two, less than ten years older than any of his technicians — but like their fear, their youth could also be an advantage. Their hormones ran healthy and strong. That was another reason why Lieutenant Cheng Dongmei was present. Dongmei was the only female in the room, and, in fact, one of just eleven women in the entire battalion.

She was smooth-skinned and elegant even in her tan jumper and with her black hair cropped as short as the men’s. The red Elite Forces patch on her chest curved along the top of her breast. Her gun belt flared from her hips, accentuating the hourglass of her waist. Colonel Jia did not want Dongmei for himself, for reasons that he could never tell anyone, but he was not above using her to drive the others.

He spoke in Mandarin, the dialect of the ruling Han. “If these signals are correct, it’s spreading even more quickly than we’d hoped,” he said.

“They are correct, sir,” Huojin said.

Jia swung on him. “Your sector shows the most gaps! Why?”

“The wind is not as strong in northern Colorado as it is elsewhere tonight, sir,” Huojin said. “Perhaps the weather predictions could have been better.”

Jia nodded, concealing his pleasure behind a stone face. Huojin was the only one in his team who was not Han. Huojin was nearly full-blooded Yao, one of China’s many ethnic minorities, a distinction that had become even more significant since the loss of three-quarters of their nation’s populace. Jia often put him on the defensive even though Huojin was his second best data/comm technician. That constant tension, like the presence of Dongmei, helped everyone in the group as they strove to outperform each other.

“The weather is ideal,” Jia said, rebuking Huojin. There would never be a time when the wind carried evenly from British Columbia to New Mexico. Then he relented. “Your dispersal patterns are adequate given local conditions.”

“Sir,” Dongmei said, “I still have one fighter southbound from Idaho with two bomblets onboard. Shall I route him toward Colorado?”

“Hold your fire,” Jia said.

Their attack had been painstaking, because they’d possessed only ninety-three capsules of nanotech to spread up the entire length of North America. Jia wanted to keep any reserves as long as possible. In truth, Huojin’s sector appeared to be no less saturated than the others‘, especially given the innumerable valleys and basins hidden within the Rockies.

Huojin was operating with another handicap. The military installations in Utah had prevented overflights farther east, shielding Colorado from the border patrols they’d used to seed the mind plague elsewhere. Reaching into Montana and Wyoming had been equally problematic, so hours ago they’d detonated thirty-four of their capsules high in the atmosphere, allowing the nanotech to sift down toward the areas where the Americans maintained the core of their Air Force and government.

Jia turned his gaze to the screens again as if looking for those invisible streams. The bunker where he stood was on the outskirts of Los Angeles, but Jia had almost forgotten. This room transcended that distance. The quiet that held these young soldiers in the eerie blue light was a place of its own, and Jia reveled in it. Together they hung poised above America through a distant constellation of satellites and planes, watching as the plague zone grew and consumed the enemy.

It was a humble scene from which to conquer a superpower. They had only a few pieces of expensive equipment mounted on desks made from crates, with so few chairs that Huojin and Yi sat on crates themselves, buried deep within a hurriedly built complex of naked concrete. A single air-conditioning vent rattled above them. The cables to and from their electronics lay banded together on the raw floor, twisting away toward data and power jacks set in the wall by the only door. The room was cold. The sole, overwhelming smell was the dusty rock stink of the concrete.

Jia couldn’t think of anywhere else he wanted to be, not even his parents’ apartment in Changsha — not even if some magic could have resurrected them.

“There,” he said, pointing at Gui’s third screen. VANCOUVER. The tangled coastline of British Columbia was still lightly populated, which left few breeding grounds for the nanotech, and Jia had been reluctant to send his fighters inland from the Pacific. The Chinese and the Russians both regularly patrolled the coast, and they had every reason to send their jets into eastern Oregon, contesting their borders with the Americans, but until the initial strike they’d tried not to act out of character. The aircraft Jia sent from L.A. were no different than their usual patrols except that these fighters dropped tiny, explosive-free bomblets into enemy lines.

The wind was unfavorable in Vancouver, blowing south, not east. “Begin our next wave now,” Jia said. “All of you. Secondary targets.”

His team murmured to faraway pilots, their fingers clacking through several keystrokes and preset commands. Jia was struck again by Dongmei’s elegance, not her physical perfection but the fine clarity of her voice. In their own way, the men were even more graceful, like dancers. Jia was cautious to watch Dongmei instead, pretending the same habit as everyone else. For once, he didn’t resent her. The first-wave fighter she’d preserved went dark on her screens, then realigned itself — a red triangle now moving east instead of homeward. Other fighters rocketed inland from the coast. Jia hoped to see strikes deep within British Columbia, Montana, and Wyoming within minutes.

“Sir, we have contact over Arizona,” Yi reported.

“There are also American fighters scrambling out of Cheyenne,” Huojin said.

“Advise your crews,” Jia said calmly.

The enemy knew something was very wrong. More aircraft would get off the ground, but their options were limited. When the American planes ran low on fuel or ammunition, or if they were hit, where could they go to? They might touch down in no-man‘s-land west of the plague zone, where they would be useless, unable to rearm — or they could take their chances in the deepest stretches east of the Rockies.

Either way, a few aircraft made no difference. Jia had every advantage of surprise and position. He was up-weather.

He allowed himself another measure of satisfaction as he studied his team again, taking in their display screens, their voices, and their rapt young faces. The American West lay before them like the pieces of a puzzle. Dongmei’s three screens each held slightly more than half of Idaho or northern Utah, with the state borders digitally superimposed along with major landmarks such as GREAT SALT LAKE and BOISE.

Most of the terrain was captured in low-res satellite video. Even more resolution was lost because the displays were nearly colorless. Still, these maps were sufficient. Freeways and old cities marred the land like dark veins and clusters, and, in many places, those features were closely tied to the data that most interested Jia.

The People’s Republic of China did not possess the same presence in space as the United States, not even after the Americans’ losses during their civil war. In fact, the Zi Yaun series were also known as CBERS, the jointly developed China — Brazil Earth Research Satellites. The Brazilian Space Agency had provided a significant percentage of the technology and also funded much of the launch costs, sharing in the satellites’ operating time until China took full control during the plague year.

Nominally, the Zi Yuan satellites were for weather and geological studies. Of course they also contained military grade optics and communications systems. First launched in 1999, the satellites were the result of a not-unlikely alliance between two developing nations who hoped to close the gap with the United States. Bringing those eyes to bear on the American West had been the easiest part of Jia’s preparations, because China had long since realigned its orbital assets. After the near-total destruction of traditional enemies like Japan, Vietnam, and South Korea, all four of China’s Zi Yuan satellites were aimed solely at India and the U.S. The same was done with most of China’s other, far less precise weather and communications satellites. Jia had simply patched into several eyes that were already perfectly arranged, supplementing his surveillance grid with ASN-104 unmanned aerial vehicles. The UAVs provided the best video, yet those feeds were limited to small areas, less than a square mile, whereas the satellites saw everything.

There was no way to track the mind plague itself. In many places, the disorder it created was easily visible, but for the most part Jia’s team was only able to track the spread of the mind plague via computer projections. They combined wind and atmospheric models with military intelligence on American population centers and eyes-only data on the nanotech’s parameters and replication speed.

The projections were conservative. Even so, Jia worried about missing some pockets of enemy territory. The nanotech was shown on his screens as swirls and clouds of darker blue. The mind plague blossomed as it touched American populations, especially the larger military bases that had grown alongside the old cities. In some places, there were also pathetic evacuation attempts. Vehicles and pedestrians lunged in chaotic stampedes for the highways, which were the clearest routes into the mountains.

Nearly all of them ran for elevation. That instinct was strong even in Jia. Every survivor would always think of the highest mountaintops as safe, although none of the enemy made it that far. The clumps of people and trucks all darkened with the same unstoppable blue shapes. Then the wind carried the plague deeper into American and Canadian lines.

Together, we win, Jia realized with certainty. It was the one thing of which he had no second thoughts.

There was a deafening crash behind him. The door was only reinforced wood, the weak point in the box. It splintered open as a trooper in black assault gear fell to the floor, thrown off-balance by the steel ramming cylinder in his grip. Light slashed into the room — the yellow, searing brilliance of floodlamps. The light was as much of a shock as the assault itself, although it rippled as other men rushed the door.

They were Second Department troops. A dozen of them burst into the room, pinning Jia’s team with short-barreled Type 5 submachine guns. “Down!” they yelled. “Get down!”

Dongmei leapt up with her pistol drawn, still tied to her equipment by her headset.

“No!” Jia shouted. “Don’t fight!”

The other men continued to yell. “Get down! Get down! On your knees! Down!”

But it was Jia’s command that Dongmei answered. She lowered herself to the floor, placing her weapon as far from herself as possible. Her teammates obeyed, too, kneeling with their hands lifted high. Huojin and Gui winced in the dazzling light. Jia also saw Yi react to a voice in his headset, wanting to respond but stopping himself.

Was there a problem with Yi’s planes? Were the pilots receiving new orders on the same frequency? Jia’s thoughts surged with frustration, but he was far more unsettled when he saw Sergeant Bu Xiaowen among the Second Department troops. The black-uniformed men had spread out, encircling his team. Bu stood to Jia’s right. He must have been among the first soldiers into the room. Their eyes met for a single, startled instant until Jia wrenched his gaze away.

“I said get down!” another sergeant yelled.

Jia remained standing, looking for their commander. The Second Department was the electronic counterintelligence division of the Ministry of State Security, the top intelligence wing of the Communist Party, and Jia was hardly unfamiliar with the MSS officers in Los Angeles. Obviously someone had traced his signals to this room. But who had given the order to shut him down?

Two of the troopers stepped closer, patting at Jia’s uniform. “Don’t move,” the first one said, taking Jia’s sidearm and his combat knife. Then they relieved the rest of his team of their pistols, too.

Jia heard Yi’s headset mumble again and it was only with great discipline that he kept his back to their electronics. What was happening above Colorado and Wyoming? Did they need to concentrate their aircraft in other places?

We don’t have time for this! he thought.

More black uniforms paced into the room, creating an ever-greater obstacle for him to deal with before his team could return to their work, yet it wasn’t until one of the Second Department troops moved to disconnect the data jacks by the door that Jia spoke.

“Don’t touch those,” Jia said.

“Be quiet,” a different man snapped.

Jia immediately turned to direct his words at him. “This is a sanctioned operation,” he said. The officer might have frowned. Jia couldn’t be sure, because his face was obscured in the shadows of the floodlights behind him.

“You’re under arrest,” the officer said.

The governor himself hurried into the room once a signal was given that Jia’s people had been secured. He was followed by a Ministry of State Security general. Jia snapped to attention, saluting General Zheng. All of the Second Department troops did the same, except two who continued to aim their submachine guns at Jia’s team.

“Are you mad!?” the governor asked, blustering. Shao Quan was an older man who wore his authority in traditional ways. At seventy-five, Shao was twice as old as anyone else in the room, and his hair was thin and gray on a round head like a nut, browned by the California sun. His business suit was conservative and dark, blue jacket, blue tie.

Jia kept his eyes straight ahead, holding his salute to General Zheng. He knew he could not let his agitation show. He noticed, however, that four of Governor Shao’s personal bodyguards had also entered the room, their assault rifles pointed at the floor.

“You’ve cost us years of work!” Shao yelled. “And for what? Bravado and revenge? You idiot!” He sneered at the insignia on Jia’s collar, perhaps amazed that a colonel could be so ambitious.

Every second you delay us is a chance for something to go wrong, Jia thought.

“Are you killing them!? What are you shooting at the Americans!?” Shao jabbed his finger at Jia’s display screens and then swung his arm toward General Zheng as if incriminating him as well. “Our forces are unready! Do you realize what another war would do to us now?”

“Sir,” Jia said, addressing the general.

Governor Shao continued to yell. “Shut it down!” he ordered the Second Department troops. They hesitated, glancing at Zheng for instructions. Shao’s voice became shrill. “Go! Move! Turn off their computers and take these men to interrogation.”

Shao emphasized the word men in his last sentence, staring at Dongmei. She was the only female in the crowded room. The young woman was still on her knees, like all of Jia’s team except Jia himself, which left her even more helpless. She was shaking, although she hid it well. Dongmei’s face was expressionless and her back was rigid, but her short bangs trembled above her dark eyes.

Shao’s old face was alive with power, and Jia felt revulsion and anger that one of his technicians might be singled out for any reason. He wouldn’t let them abuse her. “Sir!” he said, looking for General Zheng’s eyes.

“It might not be too late to stop the Americans from retaliating,” Shao said. Shao was also speaking to Zheng now, although he sounded as if he was rehearsing for a public statement. “This was a rogue operation that we shut down immediately,” he said. “The perpetrators have already been dealt with harshly.”

General Zheng was in his forties, heavier than Governor Shao and not as sunburnt. His face was equally lined, however, especially around the eyes, which gave him a shrewd, skeptical appearance. He wasn’t interested in Jia or Shao at the moment. He squinted past them at the bank of electronics, his gaze ricocheting from one display screen to another. He was curious. Jia concealed a smile. Governor Shao was the top civilian in the Western Hemisphere, but California was a military state and General Zheng could overrule Shao if he so chose…

Shao pressured him with one word. “General,” he said.

Zheng glanced up and nodded.

“We must be swift,” Shao said, “before there are repercussions. I do not mean only from the Americans, but also from home.”

“Yes,” Zheng said.

The general’s decision was made. He gestured to his troops and several of them rushed toward the computers and display screens. Yi was foolish enough to lean into their path, blocking the first soldier, who struck him in the cheek with the butt of his submachine gun. It drove Yi to the floor. Another man yanked Dongmei to her feet and grabbed her belt buckle, cinching his fist in the top of her pants. The man grunted, not from the effort of pushing at her slim body but from something much heavier inside himself. Lust. There would be no mercy shown to Jia’s team.

Shao and Zheng believed they could somehow make amends for the attack, honoring their nonaggression pact with the U.S. and Canada, in part by making an example of Jia and his technicians.

Too late, Jia thought.