The Demon Plagues (32 page)

“Maybe we should.”

Half an hour later Skull was sitting next to
JT, having been roused from his usual early bedtime. “All right,
sir, what’s so important you have to get me out here at midnight?”
His tone was light, but his permanent undercurrent of anger showed
through.

“Did you hear about Markis visiting us
today?”

Skull nodded. “I did. I wasn’t sure if it was
rumor or fact. What did he want?”

“That’s what we were hoping you could tell
us.”

Skull sat back, digesting the question. “You
think it has something to do with me? Or you think I’m a spy for
him? If I was, he sure blew my cover quick.”

General Tyler shook his head. “No, I don’t
think you’re working for him. Maybe you coming here pushed him into
a decision, like you said about him wanting to save your soul. I
just want insight into his mind.”

Skull steepled his fingers, tapping the end
of his nose with his thumbs. “He must have thought he could
accomplish some great breakthrough by the meeting. He’s not stupid
but his impulsiveness always leans toward the big play. It makes
sense that he would come here and try to smooth things over in some
major way. Maybe to come back to the USA in triumph, maybe make a
formal treaty to end all hostilities, some kind of political deal.
I doubt it had anything to do with me. It might have involved Tiny
Fortress…do you have any intel on their biodefense program?”

“Very little. The FC's damn hard to penetrate
from the inside, and without our overhead assets we can’t collect
much SIGINT or imagery.” Signals intelligence would normally
involve intercepting enemy communications and other signals, to try
to determine what they were doing.

“It doesn’t matter,” Skull stated, positive.
“I’d bet dollars to donuts that the FC will be giving you a cure
for the Demon Plague as soon as they have it. They are already
publishing a ton of results on their research without any thought
to security. Markis, and Edens in general won’t,
can’t
keep
something this beneficial secret. The Eden Plague compels them to
share it for the good of mankind.”

“You don’t seem to have a problem with that
attitude,” JT asked in an amused tone.

Skull snorted. “No problem at all, as long as
I don’t have to be one of them. I used to think the Eden Plague was
bad; now I realize it’s great for the mass of humanity. It leaves
the rest of us in charge and free to do what has to be done without
a bunch of yahoos getting in the way.”

JT smiled broadly. “I like your
thinking.”

“Back to the question,” General Tyler said
sharply. “What did he want?”

“Well, the only other thing I can think of is
he thought he could make a deal for Tiny Fortress. Or for a piece
of it. Something that only nanites can do.”

The general rubbed his chin thoughtfully,
then tilted his head back for a moment, eyes closed. Two minutes
later he brought it forward again. “Then maybe we need to give it
to him.”

“Dad!”

“Oh, not everything. Just the piece he wants,
for our own good reasons. For that, we need to arrange a meeting.
Denham?”

Skull shrugged. “Easy enough. For who? Is
this just you, sir, or is it the President?”

Travis Tyler smiled thinly. “Just me, if you
please, and you to make the introductions. I’d rather not involve
our fearless leader just yet. He’s got far too much on his
mind.”

“Roger that, sir. I’ll see what I can
do.”

-38-

Cassandra stared at the monitor. “Skull
Denham. Not in a million years would I have predicted your face
showing up on my screen.”

“Hello, Cass. I hear Rick has grown up
strong. That’s good. And Millie. How are they?”

“You know, Skull, if you’re trying to remind
me that I owe you my family, I know that. But I owe other people
things, and so do you, like when Zeke derailed your court-martial
using information I provided. Let’s not play that game.”

“No game, Cass. I’m just trying to get in
touch with DJ, and here you are. It’s great to see you but I need
to talk to him.”

“He’s not back from Pueblo yet…as I bet you
already know. Since you’re on, anything you’d like to tell me about
Tiny Fortress?”

Skull laughed darkly. “If you can get Markis
on, you might learn more than you thought you could. General Tyler
wants to make a deal.”

“The meeting with McKenna didn’t go so
well.”

“McKenna doesn’t run Tiny Fortress: Tyler
does. If he and Markis can make some kind of arrangement, maybe
everyone will come out ahead.”

Cassandra pressed her lips together. “All
right. Just as soon as he gets back to Medellin, I’ll get in
touch.”

***

The meeting took place in Mexico City. In a
rented mansion guarded by Karl Rogett and his team, four people sat
down together: Markis, General Tyler, Skull, and Cassandra
Johnstone. No one shook hands.

“Good to see you, Skull,” opened Markis.

“Good to see you too, DJ. I’m glad this all
worked out so well.”

The others looked at Skull in surprise.

Cassandra broke the shocked silence. “How in
the world can you think hundreds of millions of dead people ‘worked
out so well’?”

Skull smiled in triumph, relishing their
discomfort. “Oh come on. It wrecked the Big Three, and now the Free
Communities’ research program can go forward, just in time to save
us normals from the Demon Plague, right? Because that’s what you’re
going to do, isn’t it? If it hadn’t happened this way, do you think
the Unionists would have let you alone? They’d have cut their own
throats to keep power.”

Markis chuckled. “So you’re making your ‘good
from evil' argument again, huh? And I suppose you’re going to say
that without the Unionists and their paranoia, Tiny Fortress would
never have made progress enough to be useful against the Demon
Plague. See, I can play prophet too.” He turned from Skull to the
lean, weathered man sitting next to him. “General Tyler, if I’m
right, you decided to overrule or bypass President McKenna in this
matter. That means you’re the real ruler of the United States,
right? The man who scared him so much?”

Tyler shook his head. “I don’t know what you
think you saw, Markis, but I'm not pulling McKenna’s strings. It’s
true that I’m going around him; lots of generals have gone around
politicians before, if they thought it was important enough. If he
fires me, I can live with that. But he needs me too much. No,
Markis, it’s just me willing to take a risk for the greater
good.”

Markis looked at Tyler long and hard, trying
to see past the cowboy confidence and the rough exterior to the man
beneath. “Out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Enlightened self-interest. We have a much
greater threat bearing down on us. The USA is on her knees and she
can’t take much more. We need the cure Skull is convinced you will
come up with. He’s sure you’ll just give it away when it’s ready,
but I wanted to make sure you owed us. To, as he keeps saying,
‘make a grand gesture’.”

Tyler pulled a finely machined metal cylinder
out of his pocket, placing it on the table. It was about the size
of a soda can, slightly thinner, and appeared to have a removable
top, wrapped in plastic tape. Next to it he placed a data
module.

“This is the best we can do right now. It’s a
few grams of one of several kinds of nanobots we’ve produced. These
are self-replicating, so you can get them to breed using the
protocols on this drive.”

“What do they do?” Cassandra asked.

“Simply put? They defend Edens against the
Demon Plague. It’s all in the files on that drive. I’m sure you
have your own nanobot project; this will give them a huge leap
forward. If you get them replicating properly, you should have
enough to pass around to your most important people, at least, as
an inoculation.”

“But what about the rest of the
populace?”

Tyler spread his hands. “I’m sorry, it’s the
best I can do. Nanotech is centuries, millennia behind biological
and evolutionary design. We’re catching up as fast as we can.”

Markis looked at Skull a moment, who nodded
smugly. “Bastards,” Daniel muttered under his breath, then he
laughed. “This must have been your idea, Skull. You’re trying to
out-me me. You know I’ll be in your debt for this.”

Tyler glanced at Skull, masking his surprise,
while the tall killer sat back, his smile broadening before he
replied, “I told you things were working out pretty well.”

Markis reached for the cylinder and the hard
drive. “I’m usually the one arguing for moving past suspicion,
but…there’s no chance this could have been tampered with? By the
SS, or someone like that?”

Tyler said, “Have your people examine
it.”

“Yes,” Skull interjected. “Play with it.
Breed it and try it out on Edens that get the Demon Plague, I know
you have plenty of those dying all the time. It’s your best
chance.”

Markis hefted the cylinder in his hand. “Damn
you, Skull, you’re right.”

“You know, DJ, I’m always right.”

-39-

Raphael’s spacecraft entered extreme high
orbit, well out of range of any of Earth’s weapons. So close now,
the communication delay was only a couple of seconds, and over the
past weeks human scientists and their Meme ally had worked out a
voice synthesizer for the amoeba-like creature. Thus it was that
their conversation approached something like normal.

“Greetings, Raphael. It’s good to speak with
you again.”

“The same to you, Daniel Markis. Your media
indicates you will soon have a vaccine for normal humans against
Demon Plague One. Is this true?”

“Demon Plague One? Yes, it’s true. I just
wish we knew how many of these things we had to look forward
to.”

“If I understand the idiom ‘look forward to’
I do not understand your happiness.”

“Sorry. It’s irony.”

“Ah. What will you do about the Edens?
Roughly fifty percent of the planet’s population is infected with
it; how will you safeguard their lives?”

“We have a possible solution. I do not want
to talk about it yet.”

“You still do not trust me.”

Markis shifted uncomfortably. “Put yourself
in my position. Would you stake so much on one person you have
never met?”

“I am staking my future on you.”

“But not the future of your race.”

“On the contrary. Humans will soon be my
race.”

“Point taken.”

“Have you selected a candidate for
Blending?”

Markis nodded. “Yes. She is young, very
intelligent and well-educated, and entirely willing.”

Raphael’s visage, meaningless to a human,
pulsed and quivered on the screen. “I have explained to your
scientists that this is a permanent arrangement. I also do not know
exactly what the result will be, but my observations of my siblings
indicated that each Blending resulted in a superior being, able to
manipulate its own cellular structure. I reiterate this to make
sure you understand what will happen, Daniel. Your people may fear
me. You need to understand that, once we are Blended, I will be
just as much Human as Meme. A mind is a mind, whatever its bodily
form.”

“You’re afraid people will see you as a
monster.”

“I am not afraid; but many humans will
be.”

“Then why do it?” Markis asked.

“Because it is the only way to transmit the
whole of my knowledge to you. Much of it is locked in my genetic
structure, inaccessible to even me without either Blending, or my
biocomputers. My machines on the comet base are deteriorating. Many
of those devices have biological components, and they are slowly
dying. I do not have the means to save you. But I can help you save
yourselves.”

“And live on as one of us. I can accept that,
and humanity will have to as well, if I have anything to say about
it. When will you come down?”

“As soon as you like. I am ready.”

***

After much debate and protest, Raphael set
down in South Africa; it allowed him to come in over Antarctica out
of reach of any Earth weaponry, and land near the research center
at Carletonville. The place thronged with dignitaries from around
the world, eager to be among the first to welcome an
extraterrestrial to Earth.

First in a few centuries, anyway. If what
Raphael says is true, he’s been visiting us for over four thousand
years, helping out here and there. Makes you wonder what would have
happened to humanity without him. We might still be driving
chariots and wearing togas without the seeds of advancement he
sowed
.

Markis looked up from the floor of the soccer
stadium they had chosen as a landing site. It provided visibility
for the visitors and at least a basic security framework; seeing
Skull had reminded DJ how vulnerable they were to an assassination
attempt. Karl and the South Africans were working overtime. The one
major modification was the concrete, hastily poured, that covered
what used to be the playing field.

The crowd stirred as they heard a sonic boom;
a few minutes later the battered spacecraft flew rapidly into view
overhead, to slow down and hover several thousand feet up. Slowly
it descended on roaring jets. Raphael had assured them the
thrusters, properly adjusted, would not harm anyone, and so it
proved as the machine settled onto the hard surface. It threw out
engine wash like an enormous helicopter.

The craft itself was somewhat disappointing:
only about the size of an old American space shuttle, and shaped
somewhat similarly. Form followed function, and this was made to
fly in atmosphere at need. Gleaming whitish-silver, sparkling like
crystal in the sun, no door could be seen for several minutes,
until an opening finally appeared in its side.