Blood Soaked and Contagious (6 page)

“She is... so graceful.” Hightower sipped the tea, still smiling.

“She never ceases to amaze me. So, what brings you to my home? It has been quite a while since we last conversed. I believe you were on a flight to Baghdad at the time.”

“Yes, I’d called you to get an update on the A-344 program. That’s why I’m here now, as a matter of fact. I would like you to continue your work on that project for me.”

“I hardly have the facilities for such a thing, with the world changing as it has,” Bajali replied. As an aside to us, he explained that the mere mention of the A-344 program was enough to reveal how our neighbor planned to bring about his perfect world of coexistence.

Hightower nodded at him, “I know. I still have all the equipment, materials, and data in a new location. All you have to do is come on board and we can finish A-344.”

“May I ask why you would be interested in such a thing,” Bajali waved his hand idly in the air, “after you’ve gone through the change in your life?” The question was superfluous, really, because he knew full well what the answer would be. He simply wanted to soothe his soul over the truth, before he made the decision to try and kill his guest.

“Let me tell you why,” and Hightower explained what was known about the virus, how it operates in the human host, and his plan to make a herd of human cattle for the zombie population.

“Ah.” Bajali did not let his disgust show because he had predicted his work could be used in such a manner: selectively targeting and infecting a swath of the population. “I can see that you’ve given this the thought it deserves. Indeed, I can see how you have come to the conclusion this would bring stability to the situation, if not actual peace.”

“I knew you would understand, Bajali. The big picture was never lost on you.”

They sat quietly for some minutes, sipping tea.

Baj told us he had truly expected some sort of threat to be delivered during those tea-laden moments. He was aware that in certain circles there was an unspoken rule that you never threaten the family of a man from whom you need something. A family man would gladly force you to kill him, thereby saving his loved ones, rather than allow them to be harmed. Any threats had to be intensely personal and backed up by action, until the subject broke. Then you could threaten the family with impunity.

Surprisingly enough, no threat appeared. With no threat, there was less certainty that action was necessary, or so Bajali felt. Instead, he tried a delaying tactic in hopes it would give us more time to figure out a course of action.

“Warren? May I call you Warren?”

“Of course, Bajali.”

“Warren, I would like to have a day or two to think this over. We are, after all, talking about altering the world as we have known it in a way that makes the fear of climate change look like small potatoes.”

“Absolutely! I would not have it any other way. If two days will help you work with me, then I will gladly spend them.”

“Thank you so much, Warren. I will discuss this with Jayashri, if you do not mind. She is, in so many ways, my better half.”

“Please do. I tell you what, I’ll drop by again in two days and we can review the details. Will that work for you?”

“I think that would be marvelous. May I pour you more tea?”

“I would, but I do have a schedule to keep, and I walked here. It will take a bit of time to get back to our staging area, and I’ll have to refresh the virus when I arrive.”

“Ah. In that case, don’t let me keep you.”

Bajali escorted his former employer to the front door. They shook hands with smiles and promises to speak again in two days. Hightower left and strolled down the street with a swing in his step.

Bajali closed the door, leaned up against it, and took a deep breath. There was a metallic click behind him, and he turned to see his wife standing in the doorway between rooms. She had just released the hammer on the .44 Magnum she was holding in her delicate hands.

“My love, did we not decide the 9mm fit your hand better than the .44?”

“Yes, my treasure, but we don’t have soft, jacketed hollow points for the 9. I was also concerned about needing more than one round to destroy his skull with the smaller pistol.”

At that point, he walked over to her, embraced her, kissed her on the forehead and said, “I am never disappointed when I trust your judgment. You are the finest part of my life.”

“Fuck me,” Shawn said, blinked, and added, “Oh shit! I’m sorry for my rough language there, Jayashri!”

“Oh no, I’m not the least bit bothered. I have said many similar things about this situation; I just did it in Hindi at the top of my lungs.”

“Is that what that was this afternoon? I thought the two of you were having a knockdown, drag-out fight or something,” Shawn commented.

Baj and Jayashri laughed and shook their heads in an eerily coordinated movement. I’d seen them do things like that in the past and took it as a sign that their family matchmakers had really done an amazing job or that there were alien pods somewhere in the house. We already had zombies. We just don’t need bug-eyed monsters at the same time.

“Not to interrupt this discussion about etiquette in the face of the apocalypse, but we need to have some sort of plan,” I said.

“Well, that is why I called the two people I respect the most,” Baj smiled, “over for dinner. You are an impressively cynical person, and Shawn is a walking repository of country common sense. Between the four of us, I can’t imagine we won’t think of something.”

“Thanks, Baj,” Shawn said, grinning like an idiot. “I have to say, it doesn’t feel like I get much appreciation for anything other than ‘Dude? Can ya fix that?’ and it just warms my heart that you feel that way... ”

I cut him off. “Shawn, okay. We all love you and think that not only does your shit not stink but you’re our local Leo-fucking-nardo da Vinci. I’m not gonna hug you, but I would fuck your sister.”

His eyes crossed and he may have turned a little green at the thought of me enjoying a carnal embrace with his sibling. Jayashri’s eyes were a little wide, and Baj was coughing gently behind his hand.

“All right. Baj is the resident genius, which means he’s already thought of a couple of ways to approach this.” I continued, regardless of the facial expressions, “I’m betting he’s thought of the old ‘Go Along With It So I Can Sabotage The Project,’ the ‘Kill The Fucker Now,’ and maybe even ‘We Are Going To Flee And Hope He Doesn’t Find Us.’ Am I missing anything?”

“I had also considered going along with it in order to give the human race more time to fight and find some sort of cure or vaccine. To be honest, I also considered that suicide could be a valid option. Of course, the karma involved in any of these options is difficult to contemplate. I’d prefer not to be reincarnated as a weevil.”

“Nobody dies, at least none of us at this table. Can we agree on that point,” I asked, holding out my hands, expecting agreement.

Everyone made noises of assent or nodded at the very least. I wasn’t worried they’d disagree. Really.

My esteemed country boy, mechanical genius, and sibling to my imaginary love interest, tossed out an excellent question.

“Is there any way to use the nanomachines to kill the virus in the zombies?”

“Based on what I understand, Shawn, it doesn’t look possible,” Bajali answered. “It might be, but making a change like that to the base programming would be obvious enough that Hightower or one of his minions would know something was amiss.”

“Silly question, but if the virus can’t be grown in the lab, how are you going to get enough of it to spread?” That part didn’t make sense to me.

“Since the virus is healthiest in living humans, the particles would harvest the infectious material from people who already have it and spread it to the designated population within a 24-hour period.”

I nodded my head and asked, “Would it be possible to use the nanos to strip all of the virus out of people who are infected and then self-destruct?”

“I had thought of that, but it becomes an issue of particle-to-virus density. If one nanomachine can destroy one infected blood cell, you have to manufacture enough particles so every infected cell is effectively targeted.” He put his teacup in the middle of the table. “If you have enough infected cells to fill this teacup, then what will be destroyed is twice that because it is both the particles and the cells.”

Shawn and I nodded, following along.

“Now, you have two tea cups of material. How should the particles destruct? Heat? Micro-explosions? A teacup of explosive material powerful enough to destroy two teacups completely is not a small detonation.”

“Okay, yeah, but how much virus does one person have in them anyway?” Shawn asked.

“Have you ever had a bad cold, Shawn?” Bajali asked in response.

“Yeah, not too long ago.”

“The mucus your body expels,” Baj explained, “contains cells that have consumed the cold virus. About how much did you blow your nose when you had the cold?”

“A whole lot. Oh. I see. All the snot I had would be like the particles and the virus. Damn.”

“Exactly. Let us imagine a teacup of infected cells as an estimate for someone experiencing a moderate level of infection.” We nodded. “Imagine the explosion of a teacup-size bomb spread out through a human body.”

Shawn and I had no trouble imagining it, based on how we groaned at the thought.

He continued, “If it could be done, it would certainly erase the zombies from the planet, but there would be a huge amount of collateral damage from human being-sized bombs going off everywhere. The only other method would be to build nano-material that would strip the virus from infected cells and render the material inert. Unfortunately, there would still be apparent alterations to the particle design, to say nothing of the waste material that would be created.”

I sipped my tea. It was wonderfully tasty cardamom-flavored tea that would, under the best circumstances, relax the Hell right out of me. At that moment, I was using it to swish around in my mouth to cudgel my brain into coming up with an idea that Baj hadn’t.

The main problem was that Hightower, no matter what we did as far as Baj himself went, could keep right on moving toward that goal. Our friend doing the Hindu seppuku would make no difference in the grand scheme of things. At most, it would delay the use of those nano-thingies. Eventually, another qualified programmer/architect/mad genius would be found and work would continue.

Answer: improbable. Execution of answer: way out of our league. Possibility of wrangling help in 24 hours or less: equally, fucking unlikely.

“I know what we need to do,” I spoke up, “but I don’t think we can do it without major backup, evacuation, and the US Cavalry.”

“All right, we are considering all the possible options here, even if they’re immensely unlikely. Go on,” Baj said and motioned for me to continue.

“We have to kill Hightower and massacre every single undead shithead that might have been taken into confidence about his Evil Plan.” I enunciated those capital letters with great care.

“That’s not all that outrageous,” Shawn said. “We’d just have to be more organized about things. Hit them at the right time. That kind of thing.”

“I think I see what the problem is,” Baj said from behind steepled fingers. “The most efficient way to do that, and you can correct me if I’m not following your lead, is to do it in a single massive strike. Something on the order of an atmosphere-ignition bomb.”

“Bingo,” I replied.

“Gentlemen, I am assuming that this weapon is not nuclear,” said Jaya, with one graceful eyebrow arched in an expression both inquisitive and appalled. “I hope you are not talking about such a thing.”

“No, Jaya,” Shawn spoke up, “but it’s got similar destructive power. I mean, right up under a nuke, but it isn’t radioactive. Things like these ignite the oxygen in the air and make a fucking huge fireball out of acres of territory.”

“Oh my.”

“Yeah, I got to say though, it would sterilize the area,” Shawn added, with no small amount of regret in this voice.

“True, but as it was mentioned, we do not have access to military ordnance of that kind or the means to evacuate all the living people from the blast zone without being seen.” Baj’s expression was looking more and more grim, and I can’t say we all didn’t feel the same. “ It might be possible to assassinate Hightower when he returns tomorrow, but I am under no illusions; we are being observed. It would have to be Jayashri and I for that task.”

I couldn’t fault his logic, even if I wanted to. Hightower hadn’t gotten where he had in life without good intel and planning. There would be fallback plans.

“Right. You two kill him. What happens next? They’ll just overrun us.” Shawn’s frown was huge, weighed down with redneck gravitas. I didn’t feel much better about it.

“They might not,” I said. “It would take a little time for them to reorganize under someone else, unless that’s already been planned out. Baj, you said he seemed completely at ease.”

“Yes. Chatty, even.”

“He didn’t expect you to say no. The two of you treated him as if he were a normal human being, not the walking dead. He couldn’t have been expecting that. By the time he left, I’m betting he was mostly convinced you’d be on board for it.”