The Demon Plagues (3 page)

Aware of his contemplation, she stirred and
rolled over to face him.

He reached out to touch the notch at her
throat, the mark of a master craftsman, he had always thought.
How could anyone think that something as beautiful as this woman
came about by random natural forces?

“Hey, hunky-dory.”

“Hey.”

“Penny?”

Larry blinked. “Just thanking God for you
every day.”

“You say the sweetest things.” She leaned
closer to enfold herself in his arms, and his passion rose. The
world went away for a while.

Some time later they sat together at the
breakfast table, with scrambled and toast between them. “Remember
how this used to be? Three dozen eggs just for you?” Shawna
laughed.

“Sure glad Elise got the metabolism thing
worked out.”

“Elise and her team, you mean.”

“Yes, sorry, all of you guys.”

“Oh, not me. I’m not claiming credit, I’m
just an administrator.”

Larry laughed. “And I just blow stuff up.
Without you, the research program would fall apart into a thousand
little jealous factions with redundant and wasteful efforts.”

“Lesouer wouldn’t agree with you.” She made a
face.

“Too bad the Plague doesn’t cure sticks up
the ass.”

“I don’t think there is a cure for that.” Her
laugh was hearty and feminine, but not in the least ladylike, as
befit her big, brash personality – dominating anywhere but here.
With Larry, she melted.

“So,” he asked, idly poking at a fraying part
of the tablecloth, “how is the research program going?”

“Which part? No progress on the virtue effect
– if you can call it progress.”

“It would help to make them a bit more afraid
of us.”

“I’m not so sure. We get so many refugees
just because they know we will treat them well; that we don’t
torture or abuse them.”

“I don’t want to abuse anyone. I just wanna
be able to use kinetic weapons, especially against combat vehicles,
without feeling like a murderer. Do you know the UG is retrofitting
their Wraith combat drones to put a man
in
? They announced
it on the news. They know our options are much more limited without
lethal force.”

“Our EMP and charged particle beam weapons
are coming along.”

“I been hearing that for a while.”

She pouted. “We’re doing the best we
can.”

“I know you are. What about the space
program?”

“It’s a catch-22. We need to be able to test
things – engines first, then actual rocket bodies – but the last
two centers we established got nuked. We buried the scientists deep
enough so we didn’t lose many, just a few that were going in or out
– but we can’t do anything aboveground with all their overhead
coverage.” ‘Overhead’ meant satellite reconnaissance.

“So without rockets we can’t make missiles to
knock down the spy satellites that keep us from making
rockets.”

“I have some hopes for the beam weapons
project. The Australians –“

“The Australians saved their own bacon. The
only FC state to give the Big Three a bloody nose – and they killed
a lot of people to do it. I’m still not sure how. And I’m not sure
we’re not going to pay for it later. But they won’t talk about
it.”

“Maybe it’s because if we knew, we wouldn’t
want to know. It almost split the FC and brought down the Council
as it is.”

Larry sighed. “But it stopped the Big Three
from striking Australian soil, so now our most important research
facilities are being moved there. Somehow they jury-rigged a
solution to the virtue effect. I’ve been runnin’ it over in my head
and I can only think of a few ways, and all of them scare me.”

Sounds of sleepy bare feet slapping on the
tile floors echoed down the hallway from the bedrooms. Hands
rubbing eyes led pajamas into the kitchen as Daniela and Ellis,
nine and seven, padded over to the breakfast table. Ellis grabbed a
piece of toast, began to butter it, while Daniela sat down primly
and said, “Tea please.”

“Tea please coming right up. Larry, I have to
get going.”

“Woman works from sun to sun…”

She laughed. “You got that right. Have a good
day.” She poured the tea and then kissed Larry soundly, leaving him
to his Mister Mom routine.

He didn’t mind; schools were good now that
South Africa was a Free Community run by Edens, the telework
infrastructure was excellent, and he had his weight room handy
whenever he felt like taking a break. They were far enough out from
any facility that he believed – he hoped – that no one would
initiate a strike on them. The FC research effort was widely
dispersed, depending on virtual space and online collaboration.

He saw the kids off on their bus and then sat
down at his bank of screens. Right now he was modeling shaped
explosives in hopes of developing a nonlethal kinetic weapon to use
against armored vehicles. It was an enormous technical challenge;
how do you strike a tank with a projectile smart enough to disable
the vehicle but not kill the crew? Targeting was a big part of it,
though that had largely been solved. By using top-attack missiles
and aiming at the engine compartments or the tires or treads, most
of the time you got a mobility kill with no crew death.

But
most of the time
wasn’t good
enough for FC politics. The Eden Plague had enhanced some of the
populace’s tendencies to stick their heads in the sand, turned them
into what used to be called lefties and treehuggers and peaceniks
and the enhanced revulsion to killing made ‘most of the time’
unacceptable to those Edens. Even the Council members, who tended
to be more pragmatic, realistic and hard-nosed, were as kill-phobic
as uninfected humans used to be nuke-phobic.

He sighed, rubbing his head. His idea to
develop a high-shock, low-temperature round – almost the opposite
of the usual shaped charges designed to cut through armor – was
hard to put into practice. He’d like to be able to hit any part of
the vehicle and have the smart shell precisely calibrate the force
of the explosion to transmit the right amount of shock and
concussion to the crew to render them combat ineffective without
killing them. It was the age-old problem – the politicians and the
populace wanted guarantees that the weapons would work perfectly as
advertised.

But there were no guarantees in war.

***

Shawna Nightingale drove through the quiet,
well-tended streets of Carletonville to her South African
administrative office. She could have set up a telework station at
home with Larry but if she did she would never get anything done.
Besides, she and her small staff worked better with some personal
contact.

Her title was ‘Chief of Integration.’ What
she really did was try to coordinate and rationalize the entire
far-flung research program of the Free Communities. This meant a
lot of work on elimination of redundancies, negotiations on budgets
and resources, and personnel issues. It also meant she and her
staff had tremendous visibility across the spectrum of development
efforts, from the genetic engineering and improvement of the Eden
Plague, to the foundational work on the fledgling FC space and
missile program.

As soon as she got there she logged into a
secure link with Elise Markis. The chairman’s wife headed up the
Free Community’s Eden Plague improvement effort, and had been
instrumental in eliminating its major problems. All except the
virtue effect. That had never been overcome. Shawna sometimes
suspected that it never would be, and perhaps shouldn’t be.

Maybe the scientists working on it have
suppressed information; if they tweaked the virus to overcome the
virtue effect, we’d be back to a lot of the same old crap – crime,
vicious politics, domestic abuse – that is mostly gone now. If the
price is difficulty defending ourselves…tough call. Can’t force
them to cough it up.

The microbiologist’s face popped up on her
screen. “Hey, Shawna, How are you? You look fresh and bright.”

“You do too; no more all-nighters? How’s Cape
Town?”

Elise smiled. “It’s all right. Though I get a
lot more done if I work straight through. Research is a creative
endeavor.”

“Yes, you’ve fed me that line before. Any
news? You’re late on your last report.” Shawna put on her best
no-nonsense boss face.

“Sorry about that. I let a lot of the staff
take some time off. Tinker should be back today. No, nothing new.
Has you-know-who come up with anything on you-know-what?” Elise was
talking about Cassandra Johnstone, Markis’ chief spymaster and
confidante.

Shawna wondered how Elise could avoid
worrying about the close working relationship those two had, but
she never seemed concerned. “No, sorry.”

Elise shrugged. “Well, frankly we’ve gone
about as far as we can on the EP. It unravels the Devil Plague -
the original alien virus - almost perfectly now, and it augments
the immune system against just about any known germ. But we have no
idea of how it will do against a Von Neumann nano-infection,
assuming there even is such a thing.” She was talking about
theoretical self-replicating machines tiny enough to inhabit a
human body and affect it just as germs did. “We need a sample of a
real threat before we can defend against it.”

“I hear you, just like I heard you last week.
I’ll ask again,” she said resignedly. “Anything on the airborne
front?”

“The usual.” Elise shrugged.

“Elise, are you sure…” Shawna ground down,
exasperated. “Look, I’m no microbiologist but I do know that
viruses mutate and become airborne all the time. It’s always a big
worry with any deadly new one. How hard can it be?”

“Shawna, are you asking me whether I’m lying
to you?” Elise’s eyes were wide with surprise.

“I’m just asking what others ask me, Elise. I
don’t think you’d lie to me unless you thought it was very, very
important…life and death, in fact. Some people think if the FC
makes the Plague airborne, the Big Three will initiate an all-out
nuclear strike…so are you sure none of your team is suppressing a
discovery out of that fear?”

Elise’s brow furrowed. “No, I can’t be
absolutely sure. We have scattered and distributed operations, we
have a lot of quirky personalities, and we have way too many
leaks.” She sighed. “I’ll try to keep my eyes open, but you know
what? I’m exhausted. Tomorrow my second-in-command will be
returning from his week off. I was thinking of going to visit
DJ.”

Shawna frowned. “I’m sorry, Elise…” She
chewed the inside of her lip. “DJ asked me to tell you in case it
came up that he thinks it’s too dangerous for a while. Something he
wouldn’t tell me about, some kind of big thing that really worried
him. In fact, he said if you had time off, you should go camping
with the kids. Somewhere away from populated areas.”

“Dear God, is he worried about more
strikes?”

“More than normal? I’m not sure, but I think
he’s concerned about nukes again.”

Elise rubbed her eyes. “Damnit. You don’t
know how lucky you are to be with Larry every day.”

“Oh sweetie, yes I do. Why don’t you pack up
the kids and come on up here? Yours and ours can keep each other
company, and if you’re at a slowdown, I guess I am too.”

“Liar. You have a dozen irons in the fire
besides the bio program.”

“Yes, and nothing going right. We have to
somehow eliminate the threat of these strikes on our facilities.
Doesn’t do any good for research when the staff is worried they
could be vaporized on ten minutes notice.”

Elise shook her head. “Thank Cass and her
intel network we get that much warning. You’re right, you’re so
right. Okay, I accept. We all need a break, and if I can’t go visit
DJ, I might as well come see you…that didn’t come out right.”

Shawna laughed, booming. “It’s all right, I
get it. Let me know when you’re on the road. I’ll have the guest
room made up; the kids can bunk together."

Aboard the mini-sub, Kelley’s face had taken
on a sickly sheen in the glowstick’s light; funny that the Eden
Plague didn’t seem to cure seasickness. Some people got it, and
some just didn’t.

“Oh, please don’t puke, MG,” pleaded Gunnery
Sergeant Jill ‘Reaper’ Repeth. “It stinks bad enough in here
already. The air scrubber system can’t handle it, and neither can
I. You want to set up a Stand By Me chain reaction? Doc, we got any
compazine?”

Doc opened up his medbag, dialed the
pressurized injector for a medium dose, handed it to Kelley, then
pulled another one out. “Here, and some diazepam to take the edge
off.”

Kelley shot himself up, then leaned over with
a groan and pillowed his head on Major Muzik’s massive thigh. The
major rolled his eyes, ignoring the amused looks. If you couldn’t
take some invasion of personal space on this mission, you were in
the wrong place.

Repeth smiled at Muzik’s discomfiture, then
looked around at the team, checking them off in her mind.

Colonel ‘Spooky’ Nguyen, commanding: a legend
in the special ops community even before the Eden Plague
rejuvenated him. In the field, you had better be looking right at
him or he’d fade from your vision. She’d heard his English used to
be bad, but there was no trace of that anymore. He sounded like a
Brit now. Claimed the Eden Plague had cleared his brain.

Major Roger ‘Rock’ Muzik: deputy lead, deadly
with or without any weapon. Big, perfectly muscled, an Adonis in
the shower. She’d looked. While Jill knew she was as dangerous with
her hands as any other FreeCom trooper, Muzik made her – and
everyone else – look like a flailing child in the dojo. Everyone
but the Colonel, anyway. They all loved to watch those two go at
it.

Master Chief Petty Officer Owen ‘Doc’
Fitzhugh, Master Corpsman. Pale skin, black hair, eerie green eyes,
what they called ‘black Irish’ descended from transplanted Iberian
stock. Even with the Plague, it was always good to have a skilled
medic along. He was also gifted with machinery and electronics, a
true tinkering polymath.