Blood Soaked and Contagious (40 page)

“I have to say, I was real skeptical about these nanotech add-ons, but,” he gestured up to the roof, “I really like being able to jump around like that.” There was something strangely unsettling about seeing a sniper smile like that.

“Based on the fun we just had, does anyone else feel we need to alter our set of plans?” I was beginning to wonder if we didn’t need to just go over there and kick some heads before they could really put something into motion for tomorrow or the next day. While it is certainly an advantage to know your enemy is going to attack you in X number of days, it is also nerve-wracking. The little piddly annoyance attacks were also starting to seriously piss me off.

“I think,” Buttons responded, “we should hold out for a few minutes before deciding anything. Then we get a look at the results of the bombardment and make a decision based on that data.”

Nate gave me a comradely punch on the shoulder. “Waiting for anything like an attack is hard. Your patience wears thin really fast, so just chill as much as possible. They’re still going to try to whittle us down before tomorrow or the next day.”

I nodded. What I needed, besides the rest of my cup of coffee, was something active to do. Preferably something that would somehow add to the effort in some way or another. “Who do we have on lookout duty?” That seemed like a completely reasonable thing to volunteer for if people were needed.

“Omér and Jack for the next hour or so. Jim and Gina on the next shift.” Nate pulled out his ever-present notepad. “And I’ve got Barry and Shawn down for the shift after that. The guys and I are going to walk the perimeter a little bit and see if there are any holes that need to be addressed.”

“Ah.” No dice. I didn’t want to leave for the day and not be here if something happened. I needed, flat-out needed, to go do something.

“I’m going to go scout the area a little.”

No sooner than the words were out of my mouth than a certain whistling thunderclap arrived to punctuate my sentence. What we didn’t expect was how loud the impact would be. It actually rattled our windows, over a mile away. I can only imagine what it must have done to the windows in the buildings next to that stretch of highway, including the one that my father occupied.

It didn’t matter very much if the glass imploded into the buildings or were pulled out of their panes by the air pressure behind the slug; there would be a huge amount of it everywhere. I couldn’t help but hope that some of the troop numbers had been reduced by the impact and debris. We wouldn’t know a thing until the dust cloud cleared, unless someone was insane enough to go look.

My mad idea for keeping myself occupied had arrived.

“I want to go have a look at that. I’ll be back soon.” I got quite a few funny looks, but no one went to the trouble of telling me it was a bad idea or that I shouldn’t do it. That worked just fine for me, really. “Hold down the fort while I’m gone!” I turned on my heel and jogged back to the store.

Charlie followed me. We made it into the store before she caught up with me.

“Are you sure you want to do that? That’s a Hell of a lot of danger, sticking your hand in the beehive.” She sounded rational and not as concerned as I might have expected from her.

We were standing at the checkout counter, and I tried to explain myself in a manner that made sense. That’s one of the challenges you get when you have a brain that processes images better than words.

“I need to get out and do something. The ‘waiting around for the next blow to fall’ is making me a little crazy. I’m pretty sure I can get over there and back in all this chaos.” I shrugged. “Besides, we really could use some on-the-scene visual reporting.”

I could tell she suspected something, but her mouth said, “All right, I imagine this is your way of getting a little time to yourself to process all the stuff that’s been happening. Please, and I really mean this, come back to me.” She followed that up by hugging me so hard I fell backward onto the counter. “I do not want to lose you to zombies, or to something else you haven’t talked to me about.”

Jefe, besa la rubia. Esta un buen tiempo para un momento del amor. (Quixote again. Boss, kiss the blonde. It’s a good time for a moment of love.)

This time I agreed with him, and kissed her with every joule of emotion I felt for her. It was electric enough I think my heart stopped beating for a moment.

“Charlie, I’m coming back. You’re here, and wherever you are is where I need to be. Right now, I have to move... find out what our enemies have arrayed against us. I know there’s no turning my father back from the path that he’s on.” Yes, I speak Hero.

“I’m telling you now, I am not your sister. I don’t like furry midgets either. You watched those movies way too much, didn’t you?”

“Errrr! Yub! Yub! Chabookie ookie!”

“Oh God,” she rolled her eyes and massaged her temples, “I’m falling for a zombie-hunting dweeb! Aren’t I?”

“Wanna see my Sarlacc Pit?” I stuck out my tongue and snaked it around for extra effect.

“Don’t make me puke, farm boy. Now go upstairs, strap on your blaster and your lightsaber, go do what you need to do, and then come back to your princess. Make it snappy. Princesses don’t like waiting!” She patted me on the cheek and then strolled out the door.

She had a really great stroll. It took me a few minutes to tear my brain away from the memory of watching her walk away, but when I managed it I headed up to my quarters for a little equipment.

I wondered if a couple of clips would do, or if I needed to upgrade to the gun I was using before I went cannibal. At that point I realized the less I thought about losing my shit and eating brains, the better I’d feel about the whole issue. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if that problem went away entirely but that did not seem likely at all.

You’re wounded; you need to heal up. That’s a very binary situation for a tiny machine that is trying to keep you in optimal fighting form or is trying to make sure you survive in the first place. Although there were enough of them floating around inside me that I had to wonder if, as a group, they could think or if they only monitored and reacted through a very limited set of programming.

Could you call a limited set of programming by a different word? Like “instinct”? I wondered if there would ever be a way, other than sticking an Ethernet cable up my nose, to communicate with these little guys and ask them to do specific things. Baj would get some requests from me in that department, I thought, if we managed to save his ass.

For example, I wouldn’t mind a set of retractable claws that didn’t hurt when they popped in and out. I stood in my room, looked around to make sure no one was watching, crouched down, spread my arms, and said, “Snikt!” Yes, I did snarl a little for extra effect, but quietly. It was a nice moment of fantasy before deciding on the machine gun and a katana as my larger weapons of the day.

If you think I left the scythe behind, you would be sadly mistaken. I would rather leave my eyeballs in a bowl on my desk than not take that with me wherever I went outside the neighborhood. It was an extension of me in a way that no other tool or weapon ever surpassed in my experience. That feeling isn’t something you can ignore, and I don’t think it matters whether or not it is a firearm, sword, or a kitchen knife.

Dress code for the day? Basic black. You can never go wrong with black. Handgun. Machine gun. Sword. Man Scythe. Insatiable curiosity for more data about our opponents, and a willingness to remove offending heads... All go!

I went out my back window and dropped to the ground below. Sure, it was over two stories, but the nano-critters seemed to be good at things like jumping and landing. There’s nothing wrong with taking every advantage you can get and then doing slightly superhuman things with it.

Dodging the trips and triggers for the IEDs was simple, since I knew the positions of each little surprise. For example, the explosive at the very end of the alley was underneath a recycling bin filled with glass bottles. If you nudged the bin too far, or put any weight on it over 50 pounds, it would explode. That was the first “deterrent” in a series that became progressively nastier.

In fact, the one Mister Yan detonated was large enough and nasty enough to leave very little of him behind. That was one of Gina’s “Number 4” explosives. Her husband let it slip one night that she was planning a “Number 8” based on either magnesium or thermite. I believe his drunken confession involved the words “flaming magnesium pellets.”

They’re an odd match, but at least she’s still got all her body parts after a few years of being an improvised demolitions specialist.

Standing at the side of the road, looking across towards the gas station where Charlie and I had dealt with the mortar launcher the other day, I could see the cloud of dust from the orbital slug’s impact slowly drifting towards us. That would probably give us some crap in terms of cleaning up the neighborhood, but then it would be nice to do something simple like sweep up dust instead of coping with the bodies of undead interlopers.

I watched for any oncoming vehicles, didn’t notice any, and walked across the road. Then I realized it was early afternoon on Sunday, and that cut down the likelihood of car traffic quite a bit. People were not all that interested in leaving home unless they had jobs, and on some level I think that was beneficial to familial cohesiveness. Whether or not that was the case, it was a positive thing to wish for.

My family was not that warm, tight-knit place I often wished that it were. If I went to the trouble of breaking down my motivations for sticking around anywhere in my life as an adult, I strongly suspect it would be tied to creating a feeling of home and family for myself. That certainly rang true for our little enclave of survivors.

Route 66 is between our neighborhood and the Ballston area of Arlington. The building where my dear Papa set up shop was in an office block on the other side of the bridge that crosses over 66, give or take half a mile. I strongly suspected the reason Buttons chose the section of Glebe Road in front of the office buildings for the latest railgun target was because that stretch of road leads right up to that bridge. It would limit the directions the attack could come from, unless they had a good way to get around the crater and onto the bridge.

If that were the case, it would be a straight shot for them to drive right on up to the corner, unload whatever, and try to lay waste to us.

We could have targeted that bridge instead, but 66 was still a major route for anything going into or leaving DC. The debris would fall directly onto the road below and probably block it solidly for quite a while before the Armed Forces could remove it all. To say nothing for the potential fatalities of anyone driving on that stretch of the road when the bridge collapses, of course.

The road right beyond the bridge provided a reasonable target to create annoyance and delay for the enemy without going too far. While I might not like the man, on a personal level, Buttons did seem to have his head squared away as far as tactical decisions were concerned. That merited my grudging respect, if nothing else.

Between the gas station and the bridge was another neighborhood that was mostly, as far as we knew, abandoned. Flower and Nate often used the bell tower of the Methodist Church as an observation and convenient sniping point. I ducked into the neighborhood as soon as I was able, because walking down a road in broad daylight seemed like an excellent excuse for someone to take potshots at me. Body shots didn’t concern me too much, unless there were enough of them to overwhelm my advantages, but the risk of getting a round to my skull wasn’t worth the shortcut. Having nice brick houses, shrubs, and trees around me for cover made a lot more sense than just exposing myself willy-nilly to the idiots.

My nano-buddies perked up after about three blocks. Male. Zombie. Armed. According to my critters, he was forty feet away, roughly at my 2 o’clock. I looked over that way and saw him standing, leaning really, on the front porch of one of the nearby houses. He was not looking my way and did not appear to have seen me. Thank goodness for little favors. I took cover and had a better look.

With no pings on my internal network about other bodies nearby and having no clue what the range was, I had to assume that this one was alone. A lookout? Why else would he be hanging around on someone’s front porch? I suppose there was a slight chance that he was the original homeowner, but I had to wonder why we’d never encountered him before.

Also, the digital camo fatigues and AR-15 rifle didn’t look all that typical for Tom Suburbanite.

Next question: Where are the rest of them, if this guy is a lookout? Unfortunately, I couldn’t just run around and have a look and see if there were extras nearby, because I’d likely run into them in the process. My brother did the whole Ninja Death from the Trees thing; I was prodded into more direct martial arts. Stealth is not a strong suit of mine. Although, God knows, there are days that I wish I were better at silent scuttling and hiding in plain sight.

When you can’t answer your second question, it would be well to consider asking someone who might have the answer. The only candidate for my proposed line of questioning was Tom “Leaning Sentry” Suburbanite. I was feeling a little more like taking a direct approach with this fellow, mostly because I didn’t want to get into torturing someone. Instead, I decided to rely on my wit and charm. Sometimes you just have to make a change to keep your life interesting.