Immortality (62 page)

Mark didn’t know what to say. He physically recoiled from what he’d just heard, but he also sensed deep in his gut that a lot of it could be true. Now, for the second time, he’d tried to get answers from Sarah; and all he’d come away with was greater confusion. He had no idea what to believe. He stood up to leave, shaking his head.

“I’m not the cause of all this murder,” said Sarah. “I didn’t choose any of this. You can’t blame the messenger. This is not my fault.”

“Maybe it’s all our faults,” said Mark. “Maybe in a dozen different ways, we’re all to blame.”

Since its death, New York City had remained cloaked beneath a layer of airborne soot. From the roof of the skyscraper, the view was apocalyptic. General McKafferty stood near the railing. Wind was pushing against his back. The pressurized suit eliminated most of the subtler sensations. What he felt was something more like an invisible air current trying to drag him up and over the railing to his death. He was high above the city on the rooftop helipad of one of the tallest buildings still standing. Behind him, a Blackhawk helicopter sat on the pad with its engines growing cold. Minutes ago, a squad of his men had fanned out across the roof and secured a temporary command post, one story down. They were now sweeping their way, floor by floor, to the street.

McKafferty looked up at an airborne sanctuary slowly circling at high altitude in a lazy figure eight. The jet was a small silver dot with long contrails fanning out behind it. The President and other higher-ups now remained airborne 24/7. The lazy figure eights of their jets were visible overhead nearly anywhere in the country; all anyone had to do was look up. The eggheads had discovered that the nanotech wireless web did not reach into the air. Anyone on land or sea was at risk; but the seeds could not sustain the relay linkage needed to cover airspace. They could not float or fly in mass. This meant that if someone was high enough in the air, beyond where anything lived, a kill zone could not reach them. This fact had been withheld from the general public. Reporting the discovery would have caused riots at airports, and the skies would have been filled with planes and blimps and helicopters that could not collectively stay aloft; there was just not enough fuel. Someone had calculated that more people would be killed in air accidents than would be saved from kill zones. The self-serving arithmetic of the power elite was beginning to turn McKafferty’s stomach.

McKafferty was, if nothing else, a true soldier; and a soldier never questions orders, he carries them out… or does he? The risks of this current
black op
required a highly trusted general officer to make decisions for the president in his stead. McKafferty raised a set of binoculars to his visor. The eyepieces were oversized by design, to fit flush against the suit’s visor. He gazed down from the rooftop at a street piled with rubble. He grew angry thinking how mobs had torn through this great city, gutting it and bleeding it dry. Only a few buildings seemed intact; most were either flame-hollowed shells or had been splintered beyond recognition by massive explosions. A week had passed since the flames had died out and the last of the sane people had fled, but the smoke still lingered. The view was like what he’d imagined a nuclear war would leave in its wake. The acts of human destruction had been like a chain-reaction. The nanotech seeds were the primer, but man himself proved to be the greater destructive force.

McKafferty had visited many cities during this
black op
and the story was the same. From foreign intelligence sources, he knew the rest of the world was in a similar state of wreckage. Even if the nano-virus relented now, the world was on an unstoppable spiral toward a new Dark Age. So much had been destroyed and so many lives had been extinguished that it would take centuries to rebuild. Latest figures showed almost a hundred million dead and trillions of dollars in economic damage. The world’s empires lay prostrate on the ground, all equalized to a level of poverty previously unimaginable.

Soldiers were posted at the four corners of the roof, all with binoculars. A scout helo was working its way up Avenue of the Americas. McKafferty continued his inspection of the rubble looking for a spot to set up a forward command post: building after building moved across his field of view. What might have been a person caught his attention as he scanned past it, just a flash of color and motion. He swung his binoculars back toward the middle floor of a tower where there was a jagged hole in the masonry exposing the interior. A few seconds later, a woman moved past the opening. McKafferty followed her path until she disappeared behind a crumbling edge of the hole. A man appeared a few seconds later. The man had the dull look of a dirt-eater. McKafferty aimed the binoculars down to the street searching for an address. An adjacent store had a number on its awning. He got out his PC Tablet which was already displaying a grid-map. The target location was two buildings in from the corner. He switched the radio channel selector to air patrol.

“This is Tall-Man,” said McKafferty. “I have a definite contact bearing alpha seven-seven by tango nine, middle of the sixth floor.”

“Roger Tall-Man. We are inbound.”

This phase of the operation was getting off to an early start. McKafferty felt deeply conflicted about the poor bastards they were herding up. He knew he was in the wrong going from city to city capturing people. He knew he was breaking his oath to defend the Constitution but what choice was there? It was monstrous how the seeds performed a chemical lobotomy on some of the unfortunate survivors, and that’s what he was searching for: a specific breed of dirt-eater that was highly infected and barely human anymore. This military operation code named
Rancher
would be the final scene in their tragic lives. The research teams needed living specimens to continue their efforts to develop a way of stopping this nanotech killer. Some of the subjects wouldn’t survive the research. Maybe in some way that was a small mercy? The radio squawked with a dual tone. The signal meant that a hunt was about to get underway. Even though the com-system was scrambled, no risk would be taken at being overheard. Nothing overt was ever said. All in the political chain of command had decided that if the people found out about these hunting parties, the odds of remaining in power after victory was nil.

McKafferty squinted up at the sun for a moment and then looked back over the city. He saw the ruins of a great castle under siege. The quest for a cure was becoming more grotesque than the work of the nano-virus itself. He wondered if this was a fight mankind was better off losing.

Last night, Alexander dreamt he was leading a vast army who would live and die for his cause. Tonight he would engage in the first real battle of that war. He would stick his finger in the eye of a sleeping giant. He should have felt reservations but instead felt invincible. Rumors and superstition about him were spreading from mouth to mouth, and he was feasting on it. He was the warrior who was untouchable by the plague, the warrior who sensed when kill zones were coming and wielded them as his sword. He was a warrior who brought his men the sweetness of victory. Alexander believed this superstition would intensify his fighters’ bond to him and their ferocity; and so he began feeding the myth with artfully crafted stories, taking care that the fire would never turn on him like a rabid beast. He gave speeches as if arguing his case before a grand jury. He declared this was a battle for survival. The enemies were those traitors who used the plague and quarantines for their personal gains and the government that aided and abetted through avarice and indifference – and yes, he had proof.

Alexander and his band of fighters were at a rally point five miles from the I64 line. The deserted woodland clearing was a spot where teenagers often went parking. His militia was growing rapidly in size and strength. They had armored Humvees and heavy weapons captured from their vanquished enemies. They had fighters joining in a continuous stream, deserting from other militias. The clearing had a bonfire in the center. Rows of experienced fighters were standing in silence waiting for him to speak, waiting for him to command them to fight.

Alexander stood erect in front of the bonfire. He had a megaphone in his hand. The crowd had grown silent the instant he’d stepped into the firelight. His followers stood before him like worshipers at a holy shrine. Every eye was upon him. He felt their stares and drank them as if they were the finest wine. He was drunk on the taste of it. He was drunk on the power of it.

“Tonight, we take back some of what was stolen from us,” he cried. “We will take back our freedom; we will take back our lives!”

Alexander’s voice boomed unexpectedly loud. Echoes came back from rocky cliffs that rose hidden in the darkness in front of him. He realized the clearing was a natural amphitheater. He could see, from his men’s reactions, when he spoke it was like the voice of god was raining down upon them.

“Death to the traitors who take advantage of this plague!” he yelled. “Tonight, we destroy a tentacle of the hydra which has oppressed us. Tonight, we kill those who have killed us. Tonight, we destroy an illegal quarantine which has driven so many of us to starvation and death!”

Fox, who stood in the first row, now began chanting, “Death to the Traitors! Death to the Traitors!” Soon, the entire crowd was chanting in unison with Fox.

“Now, go!” yelled Alexander.

Amid yelling and cheers, his small army went to their vehicles. Engines revved. The air was alive with the sounds of men and machines going to battle. Alexander looked into the night sky and silently thanked God for the chance to make a difference by striking this blow.

Alexander was in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle. His transport was an armored Humvee with a Bushmaster chain-gun cannon mounted on the roof. The cannon’s six foot barrel had a narrow bore of only 30mm. The weapon looked more like a large robotic machine gun than a cannon. A remotely operated, computerized fire-control system with infrared telescopic sighting was mounted on the dashboard in front of Alexander. The gun sight’s video feeds were digitally enhanced and displayed on a high resolution flat screen. The Army called the modified Humvee an M1025A. It was designed for heavy support of infantry scouting parties. The vehicle was painted in gray and black night camouflage colors like a wolf.

At a predetermined spot, Fox switched the headlights off and drove with night vision goggles. He silently coasted the Humvee to a stop in the middle of the road. They were in a pool of darkness cast by trees. In front of Alexander was an entrance ramp to the westbound lane of I64. Behind him, other vehicles came to a quiet halt. Alexander looked up from the infrared night vision sight. He stared at the silent I64 line in front of him. The well-lit fence took up the median of I64. There were two rows of razor wire sandwiching a nasty array of steel spikes and concrete which could stop his Humvees. Surveillance cameras were arrayed as tireless sentries over the line. Floodlights spaced along the eighteen foot fence were aimed down so that the fence and the northern side of the line were bathed in perpetual light. The floods were a doubled edged sword, because they blinded the cameras to the shadows in which he lurked. This was a wall which separated a hungry ghetto from food and comfort, a wall which had never been successfully breached with violence. On the opposite side of the barrier, he could see the barracks of the state troopers who ran the line. The building’s windows glowed with yellow light. Patrol cars were parked out front and along the side. Another car pulled up and, after a few minutes, a trooper got out and went inside.

A tactical two-way radio was attached to Alexander’s belt. He wore a special-forces headset. The thin microphone stalk wrapped around the right side of his face. He rolled down his window. The time was two o’clock in the morning on Christmas day. He smiled to himself wondering what Santa would bring.

The floodlights went dark; which meant that two miles in either direction, some of his fighters had cut the power lines to the fence. They had used silenced sniper rifles to sever the lines and they’d sever anyone who showed up to repair them. When the floodlights died, more men with silenced sniper rifles blew out every surveillance camera in the area of the planned attack. Alexander heard soft crunches as nearby cameras were hit. Miles away, a car rigged to catch fire was driven into the barrier as a decoy. The enemy was blind and distracted. This was the moment, his moment, the first real blow against a government which had inflicted so much misery. He fitted night vision goggles over his eyes and switched them on. A green and black world came into focus. He looked next to him at Fox who was wearing goggles. Fox grinned back at him. Alexander knew all his fighters were ready to bloody this Christmas day. He spoke into the microphone.

“Move into position and wait.”

Fox drove the Humvee slowly forward into the middle of the I64 lane and stopped. Alexander heard vehicles quietly continuing to roll past on either side of him and behind him. They crept down the I64 roadway and fanned out fifty feet in either direction. This was the tip of the spear which would go through the I64 line and into the heart of the enemy. He was at its point. Behind him was the staff of the spear, a line of vehicles which stretched down the entrance ramp. Twenty-six vehicles carried his small army, all military Humvees. The tip of the spear was reserved for the armored Humvees which carried heavy weapons.

Alexander took off his night vision goggles and went back to looking through the infrared sight. Using the image-enhanced telescopic sight, he saw more details in his surroundings at night than he could in daylight with his naked eyes. He had practiced and fought with the bushmaster cannon and knew how to use it. Advanced degrees were not required. The system was designed to be very simple to operate. The controls were less complicated than the average video game, and he was a natural at it. This was the second time he would do serious violence with the weapon. The anticipation was exhilarating. They had captured the two bushmaster Humvees, along with twenty other military Hummers, when they’d conquered the Pagans’ town. Alexander’s first victory had been sweet. Each of his fighters had claimed a Humvee; and still there had been more left behind in the parking structure. Later that day, they had taken a second Pagan location which was not far from the conquered town. The location had been revealed by a captive just before Fox went too far with the traitor, killing him. The second site was a lightly guarded arms depot in an industrial park. The slaughter had been fast and glorious. Again, they had gutted the enemy and this time drove away with a storehouse of weapons and ammunition.