LZR-1143: Evolution (42 page)

“Mr. McKnight, it’s a pleasure. I’m General Thomas, and you’re a long way from the Enterprise, and somewhat of a surprise. But I’m glad to see you. We’ve got some questions for you.”

I took his hand, confused.

“I’m sorry? A surprise? Questions?”

He nodded, one hand grabbing the bench seat for balance as we banked hard away from the Mall as I saw the A-10’s circling in, flying low over the Smithsonian and other federal buildings lining the park.

I leaned my head back against the bulkhead, exhausted. I watched the river disappear beneath us, brown murky water calm and undisturbed.

“Yes, well. We hardly expected to see you after the ... incident ... on the Enterprise. Captain Allred’s report was fairly detailed.”

As we turned south, I simply stared as we approached the massive Pentagon building, getting lower as we aimed for the helipads on the roof of the Northern wing.

I gasped involuntarily as I took in the scene below me. There were ... I couldn’t even count that high. More than thousands. Maybe hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions.

“Allred’s report?” I asked, absently, staring at the throngs of undead.

It seemed like every single person in Northern Virginia and D.C. was surrounding the building and were all demanding access. There were too many to count. Too many to think of.

They clustered at the doors and the gates, around the walls and windows. They pressed forward and stood, in one large group—one large horde. Their moans drifted on the air, their faces all upturned and following the approaching aircraft. They extended out of the parking lots, out of the grounds, onto the roads. They were in the cemetery, desecrating the graves of our fallen. They were on the Interstates. The bridges. The fields.

“Yes, he ... Did you know that he sent the vaccine off the ship? It came with a helo about a week ago,” then he paused. “I guess you wouldn’t, considering ...”

As far as the eye could see, they moved and writhed like one large living organism.

As we descended, I sighed.

Of course he had. My mind flashed to his words on the bridge as I searched for the vaccine:
I follow orders for a living.

The moans were louder as the bird touched down on the landing pad, and the blades slowed. The two other helicopters split to the sides, landing on alternate pads to the right and left.

From the rear of the chopper, Kate moaned loudly and the General stood, waving his hand at me.

“Let’s get you taken care of first, and then we’ll talk.” He walked over to the open door, jumping down. He took his helmet off, revealing bright red hair, graying at the temples over a ready smile.

“By the way,” he said, gesturing at the hordes of undead. “Welcome to the resistance.”

Chapter 43

Kate’s bone needed to be reset before it would heal properly, and she was taken to the medical unit. I was given a checkup, as the doctor and nurses looked for evidence of the bite from the subway station but eventually gave up, sending me to the shower instead. I protested, wanting to stay near her, but they insisted, pointing out that I had roughly a week’s worth of blood, gore, and sweat accumulated on my borrowed—now utterly trashed—flight suit. I begrudgingly agreed, and took a wonderfully hot shower, dressing again quickly in borrowed blue jeans and white tee-shirt before coming back to the medical unit under escort.

The hallways were bright, and the fluorescent lights were a marvel. The air conditioning was a similarly stunning creation, and I realized with surprise that it had been weeks since I had been in a climate controlled area. The nurses smiled knowingly at me as I made a beeline to her bed and sat in the chair next to her, waiting.

I sat with her at her bedside until she awoke, and I kissed her face as she smiled up at me.

“So, somehow made it again, huh?” she asked, sitting up, voice a little faint, but otherwise healthy.

“Yeah, I know. We’re like cats, you and I. How many lives have we given up lately?”

“Too many, man. Too many. Where’s Ky?”

I jerked my head toward the hall. “Shower. She and Romeo both. They’re just down the hall, and will come back here when they’re done.”

She laid her head back on the pillow and sighed.

“Oh, God. A shower. Is it hot?”

Her voice was excited and I laughed.

“Yeah, it’s hot. Don’t worry.” I turned to the nurses. “Can she get up now? I assure you that she’s fine.”

I lifted the sheet over her leg, showing the shin where the wound had been. They gaped and rushed over, pulling the sheet higher.

Kate put her hand on the cover, pushing it down.

“Okay everyone, now that we’ve had a nice up-close look at everything,” she emphasized it meaningfully as I chuckled, realizing she wasn’t encumbered by clothing underneath the sheet, “Can I get a shower?”

After she cleaned up, we were reunited with a happy Ky, whose wet hair was still dripping underneath a towel, and a very unhappy Romeo, whose expression was more akin to that of a drowned rat.

We were all led to a small conference room, where a variety of food was laid out for us, complete with water and, marvel of marvels, iced tea and lemonade. The food was simple, but hot and filling. We ate in virtual silence for at least ten minutes, until we had the collective ability to take a breath.

As we washed down the food, Kate leaned back in her chair and groaned, followed by a loud belch from Ky. Beneath the table, Romeo was already snoring, having eaten his allotment of chicken and rice, and wasted no time in sleeping off his food coma.

The mood grew sad when Ky mentioned George, and Kate held her small hand in her own, whispering words of encouragement and comfort. I stared into the distance, wondering what our futures held now.

We were again in the hands of the military, or the government, or whoever was in charge. The capital was clearly lost, but there were still operable military units capable of doing damage.

And they had the vaccine.

All along, we fought—and some of us died—to reach the Pentagon, believing that we were the only hope. Only to find that the journey had been unnecessary.

That was a kick in the pants.

Across the table, Kate looked up as she handed Ky a napkin.

“Have you spoken to anyone here yet about ... well, anything? What’s the deal?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but the door opened and the General walked in with an aide, shutting the door behind him. He held a thin folder in his left hand and he walked casually to the head of the table before speaking.

“The deal, Doctor, is that you folks are our missing link.”

Kate looked confused, and I just stared, waiting for the information. I was too tired to think or to ask. As we sat there, exhausted and curious, he filled us in.

Allred had delivered the vaccine after following his orders to deploy it ship-wide. The military scientists had miscalculated, lacking the intel from the facility in New York that would have alerted them to the radiological link between the infected and the vaccine’s ability to inoculate. In turn, the mistake had led to the tragic consequences on board.

In a moment of prudence, the Captain had refused to order inoculations for those prepping for a mission, including the pilot and crew of the helo that brought the vaccine to the Pentagon, and the SEAL teams we had hitched a ride with.

“So where do we come in?” I asked.

“How are we the missing link? You seem to know full well that the virus requires some sort of proximity to the undead to fully function. I know you’re capable of testing this. You could snatch one of the millions of damn creatures outside to make a go of it. Why do you say we’re necessary?”

Truth be told, I wanted to be necessary. I wanted to feel like our journey, and our losses, were necessary. He paused and placed the folder on the table.

“Yes, we’ve determined the necessary radiological links, and we’ve even isolated the necessary treatment of the vaccine needed to prevent the cure from causing the disease, so to speak. What we
don’t
know, however—what we don’t have time to test—are the side effects. Our scientists have determined that there is an inherent risk in the vaccine. A substantial risk of serious side effects. We know that the vaccine in the form you were injected provides immunity. We know that it accelerates healing. But there are other, more deleterious and serious effects. Effects that would make our decision to deploy the vaccine ... consequential.”

His face was serious, intimating somehow through his stolid gaze that he knew the answer before he asked the question.

“So let me ask you point blank: have you noticed any other side effects?”

I looked across the table to Kate, and she returned the gaze, frown lines creasing her forehead. My self-protective instinct warred with my urge to save others from a fate worse than death, and as she nodded slightly to me, I knew the right call.

I spoke quickly, and forcefully.

“Strength. Serious, Superman-type strength. Light sensitivity—extreme light sensitivity. Recently, it seems like the sunlight made us hotter than normal, too, so it’s getting worse. Shakes. Blurry vision.”

He nodded and his aide made hastily scrawled notes. I continued.

“Battle madness, for lack of a better word. When my adrenaline starts pumping and my blood is racing ... I can barely control myself. It’s like a high. I get to this place where I want to keep fighting because it keeps my adrenaline running. It’s hard to stop, and each time I go ape-shit, I find it harder to come down.”

His face was stone as he listened, but despite the gruff demeanor, I felt like he understood. As I finished, he leaned back, glancing once at his aide then back to us.

“Thank you,” he said, looking at us both. “Now I’ll be honest with you. The President has decided to deploy the vaccine, in its present state. The anticipated side effects were as you described, and our scientists were seeking confirmation—any confirmation—before advising for the deployment. But we’ve aerosolized the chemical and, even as we speak, are making preparations for delivery to our strongholds throughout the country.”

Kate spoke before I could.

“Wait, what? We just told you that we were experiencing severe side effects, including barely controllable rage when blood pressure and adrenalin levels are elevated. This doesn’t give you pause before delivering it to a nation full of armed, scared people?”

He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward.

“The world is a very different place right now, Doctor, in case you hadn’t noticed. The President, who incidentally was the Secretary of State only three weeks ago, since our first Commander in Chief was killed in the White House and our Vice President is MIA somewhere in Wisconsin—she has to make some tough calls.”

“In the last three weeks, the situation has deteriorated quickly. Although it seems to have stabilized right now, and we’re dialing back the Baghdad Protocol—the slash and burn that you saw from the Enterprise—we are still up shit creek. We are trying to establish order by slowly contacting civilians over radio and citizen band communications. We have some encouraging reports of local militias augmenting our military units on the ground, and we still retain some level of aerial superiority, as you saw today.”

His voice was low, and quite serious.

“But you need airfields to launch planes. You need gas to drive vehicles. And you need people to man barricades. I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of exponential growth, and every goddamn one of these things carries with it a nasty little germ; when one of us becomes one of them each time, we are very quickly getting overrun and it is goddamned impossible to fight a war like this. We need something, anything, to get us moving in the right direction and stop our people from being turned into the enemy. Time is running very fucking short.”

I made as to speak but he cut me off.

“Decisions have been made. If we need to operate from the darkness, and stay out of the sunlight, so be it. If we have to issue sedatives to our troops before they go into battle to stem the rage, then we will. The President has made the call, and I for one am goddamn ready to take the battle to those godless bastards outside.”

Kate leaned back in her chair, inhaling deeply. I wanted to be opposed to the plan, but I thought about it. It made sense. If we had the ability to fight, albeit imperfectly, even at a risk to ourselves, we should. Failure to use this to our advantage would be foolhardy.

I wanted to make one last point.

“You should know, if you don’t already, that we’re not the only ones evolving. You can see from their behavior outside that they’re starting to band together. Not just in the cities, but in the countryside. They seem to be drawn together, even over large distances.”

He nodded, and opened his folder, pulling out papers that appeared to be images. Satellite photos of clustered groups of creatures.

“We’ve seen this, and we think it presents a weakness as well as a strength. While their unrelenting aggression in packs is highly dangerous, it also makes them more vulnerable to explosive ordnance, much more so than when they are wandering around individually.”

He slid the photos across the table.

“We’ve begun to formulate a plan for that as well, but that’s for another day. Today, I have to ask you one more question.”

His voice was serious and I suspected a twist. There was always a twist.

Always something you didn’t suspect.

I hated those.

“You two are the only people to have been injected with this vaccine for such a long period of time. You are the only ones that can provide blood and tissue samples to the scientist trying to perfect this vaccine.”

Kate looked at me sideways, suspicious.

“Yeah, so? You can have some blood, no problem.”

I nodded in agreement, even as he put his hands down on the table forcefully.

“You’re also the most at risk of terminal complications,” he said straightforwardly.

I blinked.

I thought I was going to live forever. I must have heard wrong.