Jeff Carlson - Plague Zone

“Open environmental countermeasures. During the plague year, we tried everything we could think of to stop nanotech, including beta emitters like Cobalt-60.” She saw his confusion and said, “Radioactive material. The idea was that you could carry an OEC with you like a beacon. Anyone within range of it would be safe.”

“Except for the radiation,” Cam said.

“Right.” Ruth hesitated. Radiation sickness had become less of a problem after Leadville’s science teams developed the booster nanotech, which provided a low, steady level of protection. The booster would help them against the fallout, and Ruth wondered if it made sense to try a larger radioactive source. “Even a medium dose would be better than dying right away or losing your mind,” she said.

Cam nodded. “How does that blanket work?”

“Smoke detectors have a bit of Americium-241 inside,” Pritchard said, staring outside as they passed another camp of infected people. “It emits alpha particles into an ionization chamber. If you obstruct it with smoke, the alpha flux drops and the alarm goes off. Complex 3 was full of ‘em. Cut away the shielding and you have a very small radiation flashlight.”

“Why didn’t they tell us? Ruth? Why didn’t you tell us? We could have had a bunch of these things.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Cam, I consulted on large-scale OECs, but I never knew how smoke detectors work until Pritchard told us.” And now it’s too late, she thought. How many stockpiles were never utilized because we’ve been too busy growing food or arguing politics with ourselves?

“What do you mean by large-scale?” Foshtomi asked. “Like more bombs?”

“Yes. But what’s the point? We talked about laying down huge sterilized areas with nuclear waste, too, but no one could stay there. They tested it in parts of Denver and Phoenix just to give scavenging efforts more time, but then we were losing people and supplies in a different way.”

“So the fallout is a good thing as far as we’re concerned,” Foshtomi said. “It might hurt the plague.”

“Yes. That’s one reason why we used to be safe in the mountains. The atmosphere’s thinner, so we got more UV. A lot of ultraviolet is hard on nanotech.”

“The machine plague self-destructed at altitude,” Cam said.

He was still angry, so Ruth’s tone was cautious. “That’s what happened above the barrier,” she said, “but sometimes we gained some extra room because nanobots are delicate little fuckers. They burn easily.”

People forgot that nanotech was man-made, whereas living things were the result of two billion years of evolution and had learned ways to heal that nanobots couldn’t mimic. Not yet. They wouldn’t need a great leap from existing replication keys to self-repair mechanisms. It was only one more program to develop — but it would slow both plagues and vaccines.

Self-repairing nanotech would be more durable but less volatile. That was why it hadn’t happened yet, which was fortunate. Otherwise an OEC might not work at all.

“Viruses can be killed by a few hundred radioactive impacts,” Ruth said. “Nanobots are probably disabled by no more than five or ten. Imagine a well-made watch being shot by a dozen BB guns. Something inside it’ll break.”

“So we should be driving up again,” Cam said. “Not down.”

“It’s like nighttime with the smoke,” Foshtomi said. “We’re not getting any UV today.”

“But it’ll clear. We could—”

“Hey,” Pritchard said. “This isn’t open for discussion. General Walls knows where he’s going.”

“Ruth?”

“Let’s see what they’ve planned,” she said. “Okay? If we can get the new vaccine, that’s a thousand times better than hoping there’ll be enough sun tomorrow to make a difference.”

Cam nodded, but she was afraid of his silence. So was Pritchard. The USAF lieutenant turned in his seat and said, “You with me on this, Najarro? We follow orders.”

“Yes, sir,” Cam said.

Ruth would have touched his leg if she wasn’t in the suit, because it wasn’t fair that she was safe and he wasn’t. She wanted to take it off because she wanted to share his fate, but she knew that would be stupid and disrespectful. Everyone had sacrificed too much for her to reject the thin, temporary luck of her suit.

Then her frustration became something darker. A chill drew up her spine like one slow finger and Ruth tried to ward off the premonition, bowing her head inside her helmet to pray. Oh please, God, don‘t, she thought.

She’d remembered her dream of losing Cam. Was it an omen? Ruth did not believe a higher power was on her side. No one was handpicked for glory or salvation. That was obvious. Their losses were horrific. So were their mistakes. There certainly wasn’t a big white Zeus in the sky who favored them over anyone else. To think otherwise was simplistic, even stupid. They made themselves what they were — hero, villain, bystander, linchpin — even as they were influenced by everything around them. The world was always in flux. That was destiny. Ruth had utter faith in the laws of probability, and each step she took was like a promise, leading her in one direction or another. She knew her subconscious often grasped things ahead of her waking mind. Was there a pattern she should have seen? Or was it simply that in a bad situation, she knew Cam would give his life to save hers?

She needed to be ready to stop him.

Their convoy decelerated suddenly as they came around a bend in the highway. Ruth looked up, expecting trouble. They’d arrived at the depot and their four vehicles split into pairs to cover the road from both directions.

The depot was larger than she expected. Some of the small base was fresh construction, but the squat new bunkers and fences had also absorbed two preexisting green aluminum warehouses. They were old and weather-streaked. Some sort of company sign had been removed from the face of one warehouse, leaving a less-faded square where the sign had protected the metal for years. The few open areas inside the fence were packed with trucks, an Abrams tank, and several trailers and RVs, which the soldiers would have used for offices and living space. Most of the vehicles were still parked in neat lines. Otherwise the depot was a mess.

To Ruth, it looked as though the mind plague had spared a few people inside the trailers. Then they’d been attacked by the rest. In many places, the windows were blown out by gunfire. Two of the RVs had burned. At least five corpses sprawled on the tarmac, some of them charred.

“This is Bornmann,” the radio said. “Hold your positions, but sing out if you see anybody. Over.”

Some of the infected would still be alive. Were they hiding? Or had they gotten through the wire and walked away? Ruth’s gaze traced along the fence but didn’t find any breaks. “You need to call off your general,” she said to Pritchard. “We can do better than this.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Look at it! This place is crawling with nanotech, and everything’s burned. We can do better. Even a regular house—”

“There’s a plane inside.”

“What? There’s a plane in where?”

“We never planned to stay at this location,” Pritchard said. “Just relax. We know what we’re doing.”

Ruth scowled inside her helmet. Then the radio crackled again. “This is Bornmann. We’re stepping out. Route to us through Reece’s suit if you see anything. Over.”

General Walls had put all of his suited personnel in the back of the Army truck with the blanket. It was a decision that allowed him to leave the first Humvee alone, neither removing nor adding people. The suited troops were able to jump out of the covered truckbed freely. They were his strongest force, even if one of them was Deborah, rather than another commando — but only four suited people left the truck, striding quickly to the fence.