“Artemis, wake up,” the voice that cut through his dreams was calm and familiar. He became aware of the chill and the sound of the windwhistling in through the window, cracked for ventilation.
Art opened his eyes and stared at the weld lines on the pieced together steel used to create a sturdy roof. The little rover unit made up of parts of this and sections of that sat idling quietly on some abandoned side road or another. Art pushed himself into a sitting position and scrubbed at his face before looking through the wire-covered shatter resistant windows. Annoah River stretched out away from them and the last hints of the city could be seen in the gloom. Zimfel had stopped the unit in a wide flat place, the perfect location for their work.
The river flowed sluggish and flat, a dismal gray of sewage and death. It had not always been so, of course. The first pollution had occurred when the waste treatment plant, severely short of staff due to the spreading outbreak, suffered a major malfunction. The pipelines that transferred waste back and forth along the riverbanks burst and began to spill out into the river. After that came the tanker spill further up the river, and then the madness of the suicides during the worst of the epidemic. Now the waters were coated always on the surface by flaky gray dust hanging in the air. The fire on the north shore bunker would burn until it had no fuel left to consume, continuing to taint the air and soil and even the rain with toxic ash. Monsoon season did not used to spread so far north but climate had changed to go along with everything else, and now monsoons were frequent and deadly here in the winter.
“We passed a pack 20 strong half a mile back,” Zim unbuckled the over-shoulder harness and stood from the driver’s seat. He ducked into the back “living” area of the mobile unit.
Art rose from the bunk, a thin mattress on a thin steel frame. He folded it back up into the wall and hooked the security straps, “They following? How long?”
“They seemed excited to see us and chased at a good clip for a while. I’d say 45 minutes before you should start worrying about teeth marks on the heels of those pretty boots you’re wearing.”
“Is that enough time?” Art strapped the larger of his hand guns into the holster at his hip. He had not bothered to take the one out of his boot while he slept, nor any of the other weapons on his person. The Tarleks slept armed.
“That will depend upon the Doctor, I suppose,” Zim’s words followed Art out into the chilly air.
Art’s breath plumed out of his mouth and he quickly covered his face with a breathing mask to stop the filth from entering his lungs. The small battery pack that ran the filter in the mask whirred gently to life on his belt. He stared out at the gray river that he had swum in as a boy. Their 45 minutes ticked away but Artemis only stared at the river, and at his memories. In his dreams the world was always as it had once been. Waking up was always a shock to his system which wished to believe in dreams rather than reality. When the engine of the mobile unit idled higher he jolted from his thoughts. He turned and headed for the big trailer hooked to the back of the unit.
A flat and unbroken silence and held in the trailer since before they had ground to a halt. There was nothing to say, nothing to do. They had nowhere to go and they neither slept nor dozed, but sat wide awake and staring. They waited for the stop that would come and avoided each other’s eyes. Scilla lay with her head in Borok’s lap, but otherwise they all acted as if alone in the swaying trailer.
Scilla would take it the worst, of course. She wouldn’t blame the doctor who was no medic, but only wore the cleanly cut navy jacket with the physician’s crest still on the upper arm. The Tarlek team had been hired by the underground facility and none of them were actually doctors or scientists, simply survivors. They all knew just enough field medicine to get by, but not always enough to save a life.
The accident could have been prevented as most accidents could boast. Kenjin always ensured that he was the last one out of a test zone to protect his team. He was always the first to go into the hostile territory and the last to come out, but it hadn’t been a swarm that took Ken. Most Tarleks had come to terms with the true nature of what their death would be, falling to the hands of a swarm. They were sent straight into danger, testing among the swarms of infected, launching test bombs of treatment the real scientists back at the bunker spent their time constructing.
Ken had been caught by an explosion of a gas main that Doc had tapped to refill one of his tanks. It wasn’t supposed to explode, but nothing of the old days was reliable any longer. The hail of debris had come down around the fleeing lieutenant. The chunk of cement that hit his shoulder broke several bones and bore him to the ground. As he tried to rise a flying shard of shrapnel impaled itself in his belly. The jagged metal missed organs and arteries but it was filthy, contaminated. The two easily mended injuries were nothing compared to the infection growing in his body.
Ken had been laughing a thin chuckle and cracking horrid jokes as they loaded him into the trailer that acted as their storage and working space. The team rushed to outrun the swarm of infested that had awoken from the concussion of the explosion. They all were sure Kenjin would live, that he would heal. The bumpy ride did not impede the patch up job, the stitching and setting of bones. Ken slept for a time, Scilla’s sat at his uninjured side with her hand in his.
Scilla hadn’t been hysterical; she was not the hysterical type. She helped to bandage and stitch and fixed her stern gray eyes on the patient. She batted away his quips with her normal grace. Even while she had sat beside his sleeping form with her hand engulfed in his, she spoke quietly with Doc and Borok about the plans for disbursement and a course change for better medical attention.
None of them spoke as if he may not make it out until he himself opened her eyes and looked around at the interior of the trailer and his companions there.
Doc asked how he felt and Scilla froze as he withdrew his hand from hers to run it along his bandaged belly, ignoring the protests of Borok to stop messing with his repair work. Scilla said nothing but saw the fuzzy look in Ken’s eyes. She took his hand back and felt the pulse in his wrist growing thick and heavy. She understood everything before he uttered a single word.
“I feel infected,” Ken muttered.
Don and Borok converged immediately to peel back the bandage; Scilla turned away and covered her face, sobbing into her free palm. Ken still held her firmly tethered to his side while they confirmed the stippling gray blue dusting around the stitched together flesh.
“How could this have happened?” Borok asked.
“We live in an infected world,” Ken answered with a groggy smile. “How much longer until we stop?”
Doc consulted the radar on the wall, then glanced at the location marked on their route map of the next stop “30 minutes, give or take.”
“Then I think you should give me the shot now,” Ken said.
“Now? Are you sure?” Doc asked.
“I won’t risk it,” Ken answered. “I don’t want my last memories to be of pain. My last thoughts can’t be of rage, of trying to kill all of you. This way I will definitely be gone by the time we stop. You’ll need all the time you have to lay the next disbursement, not to mention building my funeral bonfire.”
Scilla broke completely then. She turned herself back to Ken. She lay down against him, her body shaking against his. He wrapped his arm around her, squeezing tight while she sobbed. Still he held Borok’s eyes with the command of a superior giving an order. Borok nodded his understanding but had to turn away when Ken blinked tears of his own. Borok began going through the labeled drawers along the walls of the trailer. Ken buried his face in Scilla’s hair.
She quieted quickly in the curve of his arm with his breath coming warm and even against her hair. “What about the commander?” She whispered finally.
“Artemis knows everything he needs to know,” Ken answered and they all knew that Ken meant more than their current circumstances and duties. Art and Ken had been running together for years and had lost plenty of companions between them. They had long ago made an agreement on how things would play out when one or the other of them fell.
Borok and the doctor worked at putting together the injection. They moved slowly and regretfully, not looking each other in the eye. “I am sorry that I have to go, but I am happy to at least get to say goodbye, to wish you good luck, and tell you that I love you all.”
Scilla sat up and brushed her hair out of her hair with both hands. It was a desperate and shaky gesture, but when she dropped her hands into her lap she was calm again. She was attempting bravery and all three men gained something from her resolve. When Doc brought the needle to Ken’s side Scilla once again gripped his free hand with both of hers.
She pressed her ear against his chest when Doc and the needle had withdrawn. “Borok,” Scilla heard his voice deeper and louder, amplified against her ear. “Tell me that story about the infected massacre at ground zero.”
Borok recited the story with Doc and Ken adding their personal details into the mix. The Ground Zero stories had become legends to the survivors. Individuals who had not fought in the beginning against the outbreak told the stories as if they had. No one quarreled with the specifics. Scilla listened to the words, but mostly she heard the sound of Ken’s heartbeat, pumping two poisons dutifully through his body. Both would kill him, there was an antidote for neither. The one Doc had given him would simply take effect before the ravages of the other could take hold.
Scilla couldn’t remember the beginnings of the outbreak as her companions did, she hadn’t been born yet. She had no fear of the living infected because she was immune to their toxin. But she couldn’t help Ken; no one could, not yet.
“Keep going,” he whispered to her, as Borok continued his story. “You have to keep going, Priscilla.”
The perpetual beat of Ken’s heart became a memory instead, following along behind the echo of Borok’s voice. Scilla moved to sit near Borok and Doc covered Ken with a blanket. When Artemis opened the door three sets of haunted eyes turned to stare out into the murky gray air, sluggish hands moved to cover mouths and noses with breathing masks.
“We’ll have to burn him,” Doc said. It was all the explanation that was needed to tell their commander what had occurred.
“We have 30 minutes,” Art answered as he climbed into the trailer.
Outside Zimfel already was at work putting together the scatter-shot mechanism that would disperse the test chemical among the infected. Borok and Doc left the trailer to assist Zim, to inform him of what had happened, and begin collecting wood for the bonfire. Scilla sat patiently while Artemis went to work at the fold down table, pulling from the drawers and assembling the charge for the dispersal unit.
When he approached Scilla she rolled up her sleeve without being asked. He passed the body of his friend and second in command with a glance that spoke of the hatred of their fate, for he should have liked to say goodbye. He did not want to now worry about the infected who brought about the death of so close a companion.
Artemis drew Scilla’s blood with practiced efficiency and she did not even flinch. She held the bandage to the puncture as he mixed the blood with the chosen chemicals. He placed a sample drop into a dish holding some of the stock supply of the virus. They silently watched as the round orange bits attacked the oblong red wobblies while leaving the white discs and blue fuzzies alone. Scilla had seen this performance many times. She knew it well. She understood what it meant, but did not have any hope for a repeat performance once the chemical was dispersed among the infected. They saw what they wanted to see on the magnified display screen, but the blood of the infected never showed the same results. This was why they still tested and travelled and tested some more. They had not yet found the right chemical combination to cure the infected.
“Take this to Doc,” Artemis handed the vial to Scilla who stood and took it immediately.
“I would like to get him ready, if you don’t mind,” Scilla said.
“Of course,” Artemis muttered, “Only give me a moment with him.”
Scilla found Doc and handed over the vial. His case filled with tools and odd components and bits of wire sat at his feet. The disburser’s launch components lay exposed like the guts of a dead animal. He took the vial and plugged it into the slot at the top of the sprayer. He went immediately back to work and Scilla returned to the trailer.
Artemis had already gone. Scilla went quickly to work, feeling the rumblings on the air of nearby infected approaching more quickly as they sensed the presence of the pureblooded. They were hurrying toward a meal now, so the Tarleks must hurry to stay ahead of them.
Scilla washed Ken’s hands and face and smoothed down his hair. She straightened his clothing and emptied the pockets of those things he would prefer to have left behind to the survivors rather than burn needlessly. She considered his still face for a long moment, and then turned away. She opened the door of a tall locker filled with assorted tools of a person on the run, on a mission. Each and every item in Ken’s locker made her hurt more deeply with his loss. She found the locket, stuffed into the toe of a sock on the top shelf. She dumped the little golden oval into her hand and glanced at Ken. She popped the locket open and looked at the face of the woman there. She snapped it carefully closed and tucked the locket deep into the front packet of his shirt
“Go be with her now,” Scilla whispered
The bonfire was prepared and the men worked silently together to move Ken’s body to the pyre. They stood unsteadily in a semicircle around the unlit pile. Doc recited out a bit of poetry. Atemis said nothing out loud, but remained a while behind when Zim returned to the vehicle to prepare to move out of range. Artemis joined Scilla in the trailer to clean up and Borok and Doc went for one last check on the dispersal. Doc arrived back on the trailer first. Borok hurried to the door soon after, ducking under the threats of being left behind.
Scilla stared at him, “Why are you damp?”
Borok didn’t respond. No one else seemed interested in questioning him.
Like the coherent voices of the unaffected, fire would draw the infected like a strong lure, especially in this cold climate. Borok had lit the fire before Zim moved the vehicle off. They found an overlook nearby where they parked to watch the body of their friend burn and activate the dispersal when the infected had convened.
No one said anything about the odd way the fire was burning. It was too horrid to think of and there was no way to fix it anyhow. The infected came soon after, hurrying across the ground with instinctive spurts of motion, no longer even resembling what they had once been.
“Launch it,” Artemis said. Once the swarm of infected had gathered fully. The concussive blast would knock the infected out for 10 minutes at the most. They would have to hurry to move in and get the samples they needed.
Borok activated the detonator in his hand. A series of beeps sounded over the muttering of the infected and the crackle of the flames. At the end of the beeps the detonation would knock the infected down. The disperser’s top would flip open and spray the chemical and clean blood combination over the heads of the infected.
Instead the entire valley was rocked by an explosion that blew a crater into the small parkway they had vacated. Most of the team was thrown backwards onto the ground.
Artemis was on his feet immediately shouting to be heard. The others pushed themselves shakily to their feet and observed the damage below. Limbs and rocks and burning branches and shards of metal were scattered everywhere. There was no life remaining in the bloody disorder below.
“What happened?” Artemis demanded. Scilla stared over the edge at the black center of the explosion where Ken’s body and funeral pyre had lain.
“I stuffed his pockets with explosives,” Borok answered as he joined them to see the carnage. Doc and Zim approached behind them
“What!?” Artemis’s voice was loud with angry authority. When he turned to Borok he saw only defiant pride that did not whither under his commander’s stare. “We are supposed to be trying to cure them, not blow them up! Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Look what they have done!” Borok answered. “We’re allowed to kill them if we need to. Today we needed to.”
Scilla slipped her hand into Borok’s and leaned against his shoulder, thanking him for doing the bad for the good of the team.
“I can’t believe you would do something like this,” Artemis roared. “And you destroyed the dispenser.”
“I’ll build a new one,” Doc said, his eyes were glued to the scattered fires below, “Is that why you were wet? You damped him down so the explosives wouldn’t blow early, wired the explosives to the disperser and the detonator.”
“And rescued the sample,” Borok handed the vial to Artemis who took it and slipped it in his pocket.
“Nicely done,” Zim murmured.
“How am I supposed to report this?” Artemis asked.
“Call it an accident,” Scilla suggested.
They stood and watched the small collections of fire burn and mourned their friend until the sun faded completely and the chill drove them back to their vehicle. They moved on.
