Plaguelands (Slayers Book 1) (21 page)

The automated car drove itself at the assigned speed limits, but that wasn’t fast enough, so I engaged the override and was blasting along the coast highway. Cars were still driving on the road from the capital to Valhalla with their frozen occupants inside. I was in a police car that I’d found on the side of the road, the officer frozen in space standing next to it. Rebekah sat clutching the handrail above her head as I whipped the car back and forth around the other vehicles.

I slammed on the brakes and the car screeched to a halt at Valhalla Harbor. I ran to the docks, hoping my dad was okay, but knowing he probably wasn’t. I ambled down the steps to the dock and raced to the boat. There was my father, bent over with a coil of steel cable.

“Dad!”

I raced to his side, Rebekah a few paces behind me.

“Dad!” I shouted again next to him.

He didn’t move.

“Dad, can you hear me?”

Still no response.

“Please, Dad,” I begged.

Rebekah came and put her hands on me and I shrugged them off. I shouldn’t have. I wanted a hug. But I needed it from my father.

I started crying. Rage swelled up inside me and I screamed. A loud animalistic cry. Rebekah backed up slightly, but then placed her hand on my shoulder as I cried again.

“I’m going to find a way to save you, Dad,” I sobbed. “It’s a virus that was uploaded to the neural web. It locked down all your servos. Fleet is working on fixing it. It might be a few days, but they’ll fix it.”

I stared at his unmoving body for a moment. It was still warm to the touch, which was good. The nutrients had to stay at a certain temperature, I remember reading, so the heater was still going but the circulator pumps were locked. I wondered if there was some way to get inside and manually spin the pumps.

“Dad, I’m going to go check on Mom,” I said looking directly into his unmoving eyes. I knew he was in there. I wish he could have spoken back. I wondered for a second what he thought of his son wearing a Fleet uniform.

“I love you, Dad,” I said.

Rebekah sniffled and whispered “I love you, too,” to my dad and touched his shoulder as we walked back up the dock.

Rebekah and I got in the car and sped to the library. The town square was filled with frozen adults. Small children were crying. Teenagers were wandering aimlessly—some confused, some crying, some just shell shocked.

I pulled out my digibook and punched up Marshal Burnham’s contact info.

The screen beeped and beeped like the call was outgoing, but no one answered. I ended the call and tried again. Finally, the marshal picked up.

“Pax?”

My eyes were red from crying. “Marshal, I’m in Valhalla. The enhanced forms here are frozen up too.”

“It’s planet wide,” he nodded. “GEO Station is on the Earth net too, and we’ve got ten thousand people locked down up here as well.”

“The kids, Marshal,” I sniffled, “there are little kids alone down here and they’re all freaked out.”

“We can’t enter the atmosphere until we isolate the virus,” he replied. “We have to hack our own firewall on the Earth networks to shut them down so any rescuers don’t get affected as well. Luna Base techs say they’ll have it within six to eight hours, and then they have to firmware upload to everyone on the rescue teams to make sure they don’t accidentally access the Earth net.”

“Is there any way to spin the circulator pumps manually?” I asked.

Burnham shook his head. “No, you’d have to open the CNS casing and risk direct infection to the brain to get to the cerebral impeller. No, I’m afraid that could only be done in a sterile surgical setting by a trained medical team.”

“What can we do?” Rebekah asked over my shoulder.

“Help the children. Gather them up. Organize some sort of care system. Oldest children take care of the youngest, and so on. Rescue teams will be on the ground in twelve hours, maybe sooner.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

The screen flickered as the call ended.

I grabbed Rebekah’s hand and we ran inside. I found my mom in her office in the library. The video she was watching when the virus struck was paused, like she stopped it to pick up the phone.

The neural web. It had driven Semper crazy and now threatened the lives of every enhanced form I knew.

“Mom,” I whispered. “Mom, I love you.”

Of course there was no reply. I touched her cheek, and clearly the heater was still working to keep the body warm.

“Mom,” I sobbed, “I know you can hear me. I want you to know I just went and saw Dad. He’s on the boat. He’s stuck too. Everyone is. It was a virus uploaded to the neural web. It’s a long story, but the techs on Luna are working on a fix for it.”

I held her hand.

“Mom, I have to go now. I love you.”

I squeezed tightly. She didn’t squeeze back.

Rebekah and I went back out to the town square. The police car had a loudspeaker, which I used.

“Everyone, please come assemble in the town square!”

Faces poked out through windows. Heads poked around doorways. Children of all ages started wandering through the town.

“Rebekah, can you gather everyone here? Keep them here till I get back?”

“Sure, Pax, but what do I say?”

“Don’t tell them anything, just keep them here and tell them I’ll be back soon with instructions.”

I kissed her cheek and hopped into the car, driving through town instructing everyone to return to the square for further instructions. I repeated the same message over and over on the loudspeakers.

By the time I got back to the square, there were several hundred kids assembled. Missing was anyone under the age of about four or five.

“Alright, what you all know is that something tragic has happened today. A computer virus infected our parents and locked all their servo motors. They’re alive, but they’re stuck. The voice modulator is tied to the servos so it’s broken, too. Know that they’re okay. They can hear you. They can see you. They can feel your touch. Go be with them. They’re probably scared crazy. Then once you’ve talked to them and let them know that you’re okay and help is on the way from Fleet…get to the Academy. Tier Y students are in charge of getting food and supplies. Tier Z students take care of the small children. Tiers X, W, V, and U need to go door-to-door in town and find anyone with babies. Small children. Bring them to the school.”

“What about the crèche?” shouted a voice from the crowd.

The town’s government-run day care. There would be a few dozen babies there.

“Tier T and S, go to the crèche and take care of the little ones.”

“How?” asked someone else.

“Rebekah, can you—” I started to ask.

“I’ve got this,” she said to me, before turning back to the crowd and saying, “I’ll go with you and show you.”

She squeezed my hand and ran off with about twenty kids.

“Everyone else, get to the school,” I commanded. “Orders of the Fleet.”

I recognized a kid, a year younger than me, who had to be close to his own transformation. He looked pale as a ghost. I walked up to him as the crowd started up the street toward the school.

“Orso,” I asked. “Orso Pullman?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Hi Pax. Nice uniform.”

“Are you okay?”

“No…Pax…jeez…it’s all…I mean….” he stammered.

“Orso, you need to take charge here. You’re the oldest. They’ll listen to you. You’re the town lacrosse hero. You can do this.”

“That could have been me,” he sobbed. “That was almost me.”

“But it wasn’t,” I reassured him. “And it wasn’t me either. Now I need you to go be in charge. I have to coordinate rescue efforts with Fleet. I’m the only one who can do that right now. And so I need you to do this. They need you.”

He nodded and gave me a poor attempt at a Fleet salute, then ran off to join the others.

I pulled out my digibook and looked up my comrades—Morgana, Cyrus, Kaelis, and others—in the directory. One by one, I called them and told them what to do: spread the word, get home, organize the kids, keep spreading the word. Definitely make sure the kids get to see their parents. And that I’d be back in the capital before nightfall.

I got to the crèche where Rebekah was helping with a swarm of crying infants. Growing up in single-child households didn’t give a lot of kids experience with babies, so they awkwardly held them and looked dismissive about changing them.

“Rebekah, I need to go back to the capital,” I said. “We need to coordinate nationwide relief efforts. It’s going to be like this in every town in the Republic.”

She nodded. “Go. I’ll be fine here. I’ll sleep at your parents’ house and I’ll go talk to them before bed.”

“I might be gone a day or two, but I’ll be back.”

She smiled weakly, “Of course you will. You’re the hero of this story. You have been all along.”

We kissed deeply and passionately. I didn’t want to leave…not now. But I peeled myself away from her lips and ran to the police car I was borrowing.

An illegally short ride later back to the capital, I arrived at the BRF auditorium and saw Cyrus doling out commands. The older kids were out appropriating vehicles from around the area where they could. Morgana was pointing on a map of the country where each team needed to go. It was entirely too much space to cover by ourselves, but if we could spread the word and get the kids in each town to organize, that might just be enough.

Hours passed as new cars became available and we sent the kids on their way to communities across the Republic. It was a ten-hour drive to Bend and Roseburg, the cities farthest away, so we decided to try to contact friends and acquaintances in those towns via the directory to spread the word. The
Slayers
in-game message forum also became an immensely powerful way to post information and reach the organic children in every community. Even a few Outland adults pledged to pitch in their support in their communities.

Soon, the machine was moving on its own, with people either heading home to spread the word or calling everyone they could via the digibook’s messenger app. It was well past 0200 before I finally fell asleep at my desk in the BRF office.

Sometime around 0500, I awoke with someone tapping my shoulder.

It was Morgana. Her long, curly red hair shone brightly in the dim light.

“Pax,” she whispered. “You need to come outside and see this.”

I was groggy but did as I was told. She grabbed my hand and led me down the hall to the main doors, and then out onto the expansive front steps.

She pointed to the sky.

The night sky was flashing brightly every few seconds. I’d seen the flashes before, irregularly, my whole life. Those were Roberts drives. Sometimes there was one flash per second. Sometimes several. I estimated hundreds of flashes.

“Every ship in the Fleet must be up there,” she said, squeezing my hand.

I looked awestruck up into the sky, watching as the flashes continued. Some of the ships were so brightly lit and so large we could see them.

“That one has to be
Magellan,”
she said, pointing at a giant bright light hovering two hundred kilometers above us. “It’s enormous.”

A stream of smaller lights soon started falling on the planet. Dropships were being dispatched from the hundreds of capital ships in orbit. Thousands and thousands of dropships.

The evacuation of Earth was about to begin.

Two days had elapsed since the computer virus took hold. The Fleet technical staff on Luna had only been able to ensure the safety of the rescuers and complete the disabling of the Earth local neural web. Tragically, this also meant the shutting down of the Cortex and Directory services. No messaging. No
Slayers
. Nothing.

The virus still had the enhanced-form servos locked, but no one could figure out how. Attempts to override the virus’ lockdown on an individual would result in flailing spasms of the robot body until it actually broke into pieces.

At the end of the second day, one day before the maintenance fluids would become toxic and the organic brains would be starved of their nutrients, the techs figured out how to uncouple the voice modulators from the jaw motor servos, at least. Enhanced forms could now talk, but not move their mouths. It was eerie.

Across the capital, I heard screams and that odd whining noise of trying to cry that I first heard with Semper.

If they could talk, so could my parents.

I raced home to Valhalla in my borrowed police car and went straight to the library. Mom was still there, as if I’d expected her to move.

“Mom?”

“Pax, honey, is that you?”

“Yeah, Mom, I’m here.”

“Oh thank goodness. I’ve been so worried. But thank you. Thank you for coming to see me the other day. And thank you for Rebekah. She’s been coming by to keep us company.”

“Us?” I asked.

“She’s relayed messages back and forth between your father and I. She’s the best daughter I could have ever hoped for.”

Mom made a whining noise. She was sobbing and her modulator just couldn’t recognize it.

“Don’t you ever give her up,” Mom said.

Tears welled up in my eyes.

“Mom,” I sniffled, “I’m not giving up on you either.”

“I feel sick, Pax,” she said. “The toxicity. It’s taking hold. My organic brain is bathing in its own poisons.”

I started crying now.

“Mom, you’re gonna be fine.”

“No, Pax. I know how this goes. If they don’t get this figured out in the next few hours, I’m done. I won’t be the same, even if they can bring me back, I’ll be a vegetable.”

I wiped my streaming eyes on the back of my hand.

“And I don’t want you to see me like that. So this needs to be the last time that you come here. I already told Rebekah the same thing a few hours ago.”

“Mom, no…I’m not going to abandon you like that.”

“Pax,” she said soothingly. “Please. Do this for me.”

I hugged her unmoving body. It was barely even warm now except right around her mechanical heart.

“You’re cold.”

“I told you, Virtus, the fluids aren’t moving right.”

“Virtus?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m so sorry Pax. Things. They aren’t making sense now. My head hurts. Words are painful and…hard to find. You need to go. See your father one last time, too. And tell him I love all of you.”

I sobbed.

“Now go, Pax. Go live for me, and for your father.”

I squeezed her tightly one last time.

“Be glad,” she said, making a gasping noise, “it’s ending like this; most endings aren’t this special.”

I left her office at the library, and hopped in the car for the short drive to the dock. Rebekah was with my father, holding his hand.

“Pax!” she yelled and ran to me, throwing her arms around me.

“Pax!” I heard my dad shout.

I ran to his side, crouched down, and gave him a hug. So tight.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said.

“I’m glad
you’re
back,” I joked, trying to smile.

“Just for a while, Pax.” He made a sound like a grunting. “God, my head hurts.”

“Mom said she loves you, Dad. All of us, actually.”

Dad made a noise that was that awkward droning sob I’d come to know and hate.

“I love you, too, son,” he sobbed. “I once told you I couldn’t have been prouder of you but that was before I’d seen what you could become. A leader of men. A commander of the Republic. And a wonderful partner to this beautiful and exceptional lady.”

I was fully crying now. I was tired of crying. I was tired of hurting.

I thought back to Rebekah’s family dying in front of her. At least it was quick. Sudden. Brutal. There wasn’t the long drawn out death that I was witnessing in both of my parents. And I knew that an entire generation of children was experiencing the same thing at this exact moment.

There was nothing left on Earth to live for without our families. Without the adults who had guided us, mentored us, and shaped us.

“Dad, they’re working on fixing the virus. I mean, they’ve got the neural web unblocked and your voice working again. Maybe they’ll get to the servos?”

“That’s good optimistic thinking, son,” he chuckled. “But in any case, I don’t want you here when I go. Your mom said the same thing to you, right? You need to remember us—ahhhhhhh!”

“Dad!” I shouted.

“This is the worst headache
ever
,” he said. “Anyways, I want you to remember us for how we were, not…not this.”

“Okay, Dad,” I agreed. “But you’re going to be okay. You’ll see.”

“Pax, your grandparents, my parents, are on Alternis. They moved there centuries ago. We don’t talk much, but they’re alive and well. It’s a terraformed planet. Mostly ocean. Your grandfather, he’s a fisherman there. If you can get in touch with him and tell him what’s happened, and that I love them both, that would be fantastic.”

I nodded.

“Oh and son, if you’re looking for an honest life off-world with your lady here, Alternis is beautiful. And my dad might have a place for you on his fishing boat. Tell him I highly recommend you.”

I laughed in between sobs, then reached in and gave him a hug.

“Now go, please,” he groaned, “and let me be. My head hurts and thinking is not making it any better.”

I squeezed tighter.

“Goodbye, Dad.” I could barely choke out the words.

Rebekah came closer and hugged us both.

“You hold on to this one, son,” he said quietly. “Women like her come along once in a few hundred years. I know: I got the last one.”

We laughed and cried and then Rebekah was the one to grab my hand and start leading me up the dock.

“I love you, Dad!” I yelled back over my shoulder.

“I love you, too, son,” came the tinny reply.

We walked to the car. I lost it. I wanted to scream and cry and shout and pound on the car, but I couldn’t even breathe. I doubled over from the pain.

“I’ve been there before, Pax. I’ve lost everyone that ever mattered to me except for you. Even your parents back there. Lord knows they’ve been so good to me, like real parents. I’ll always love them.”

I’d barely slept in days. We went back to my parents’ house and let ourselves in. I walked down the hall with all the colorful photos, but no more tears came. I was empty. I lay down on my bed with Rebekah curled up against me, stroking my hair until I fell asleep.

She stayed awake all night.