Jeff Carlson - Plague War

Cultivating it was extremely delicate work, for which Ruth donned one of Grand Lake’s few containment suits. One mistake could kill her. But the snow†ake did not attack rubber or glass.

She was forced to start from scratch. The data index included notes and information stolen from Leadville, but LaSalle’s ‚les had been unavailable. It didn’t matter. Her memory was nearly photographic and she’d helped LaSalle with early models of his baby. In fact, after the president’s council realized the true might of the snow†ake, Senator Kendricks had tried to recruit Ruth into LaSalle’s weapons group with the threat of losing a new arms race to the Chinese. At the same time, James Hollister had insisted that the Asians were years behind U.S. research.

Ruth didn’t know who to believe anymore. By itself, the new technology she’d called the ghost was proof enough that other scientists were still at work. The nanotech war had begun, almost unnoticed within the larger con†ict. She was afraid they’d already lost. The hundreds of sick people in the medical tents. The thousands of others who’d died undiagnosed in the long winter…How many of those casualties could be attributed to some as-yet-unknown effects of the ghost?

In three days she’d spent less than three hours trying to improve the vaccine. The rest had gone into preparing a genocide. It was a real chore to assemble the snow†ake by hand with inadequate gear and her ‚rst four efforts failed, too imbalanced to retain their purpose. Finally she had a single working snow†ake and locked it in a glass cap, carefully exposing it to a handful of weeds inside a larger glass. Breeding more was that easy. The weeds disintegrated and suddenly Ruth had trillions of the killing machines, although many of these new snow†akes were dead or half-strength. Ruth had to discard two hundred before she quit trying to sort through the mess, but during that time she found seven more snow†akes that were whole. Each of them went into a cap. Then she exposed those seven, too, after which she divided each of her eight teeming glasses into hundreds of smaller vials. Cluster bombs. Fifty vials to a case.

The snow†ake would also be effective in stopping the massive ‚res across the West, she’d realized. If they dispersed the nanotech along the front lines of a blaze, it would smother the inferno by reducing its fuel to dust. Maybe there were other peaceful uses.

If nothing else, she needed the snow†ake for testing. Eventually she hoped to design some way to protect people against it, like a weapon-speci‚c ANN, but the damned thing was just too basic. There was no proof that Ruth could imagine. Not yet. In time she might design a supernano that was capable of holding a person together against anything, even a bullet. It would be a form of immortality, an augmented immune system capable of sustaining good health.

Most important to Ruth, it would be the incredible technology to save Cam, using the blueprint of his DNA to restore his body and completely heal his wounds.

* * * *

She found him where the soldier had said, hiking up from the broad valley where the town once stood. Footpaths and crude jeep trails lined the slopes by the hundreds. Mud slides slumped across the barren earth. Here and there, stripped vehicles marred the land, cars and trucks that had bogged down or run out of gas during the ‚rst sprint for elevation. They were empty shells. Everything had been ripped away from them, seats, tires, hoods, doors, bumpers. The need for building material had been that severe. Far away, all that remained of the town were the right corners and straight lines of its foundations and streets, a small maze of squares set against the uneven shore of the lake. Several concrete structures remained, as did the fenced-off tarmacs of its three gas stations, but anything that was wood or brick or metal was gone.

Ruth felt nearly as forlorn. She worried at the choices she’d made. She could have had Cam, even for a moment, but she’d run to her work instead. It was the same choice she’d always made, even when one sweet hour together would have left her rested and better focused.

She didn’t want to die alone.

The sun had fallen away from noon in a hazy sky laced with contrails. Helicopters chattered somewhere in the north and Ruth wondered what they would do if the war suddenly fell on top of them. Run down, she thought. Run to him and keep running.

There were more than a dozen people with Cam, but Ruth recognized the way he carried himself even though his body was top-heavy with equipment. He’d slung a rack of wire cages over his shoulder. He wore a pack, too, and there were thick leather gloves tucked into his belt. Her chest lightened at the sight of him so clearly in his element…

Cam was laughing with a young woman. Ruth frowned. She had waited nearly an hour, holding her stone in her left hand, pressing its gritty surface into the soft, tender skin of her palm. She could have trudged down after him instead of staying with her thoughts, but she was sure he would have made the same decision. Be patient. Don’t risk infection.

Ruth tucked her rock into her pants pocket and walked to meet him, ruf†ing her ‚ngers through her bangs when the breeze tugged at her jacket and her curly hair. She needed a barber. When her hair got too long, it †uffed and made her look like Jimi Hendrix, which wasn’t particularly †attering. Still, the primping was unlike her and she knew it.

“Cam,” she called. He didn’t react. The wind was against her and he walked in the middle of the ragged group — ragged but in good health. Their voices were loud with the satisfaction of a job well-done, and yet Cam only directed his words at one of them. Allison Barrett.

“Next time just drop the cage,” he told her.

“That little fucker wouldn’t have made it anywhere near me and you know it,” Allison said, and Cam laughed again.

The girl was in her early twenties, Ruth thought, with a wide mouth and great teeth that she liked to show in a con‚dent animal smile. Bad skin. Most of it was sunburn but there were threads of plague scarring, too, especially on her left cheek. Her blond hair had been bleached almost white by the sun.

Ruth only knew her because Allison was one of the mayors elected in the refugee camps. After Ruth’s second meeting with Governor Shaug, Allison and three others had waylaid her escort in strident voices, demanding information. Shaug hadn’t dismissed them either, taking the time to introduce Ruth and to settle their questions. The refugees had clout if only because there were so many of them, and yet Ruth suspected the “mayors” had been a large part of Grand Lake’s ability to endure. For example, the trap-and-release project was absolutely genius. It showed the capacity to look ahead instead of allowing their many immediate problems to blind them to everything else.

Allison was clever and tough, exactly like Cam. Like the rats, Ruth thought, but that was uncharitable. She made herself smile as the work crew approached, carrying Allison and Cam along in the middle. Their heads were still turned toward each other. Allison noticed her ‚rst.

“Hi,” Ruth said.

Cam hesitated. His body language toward Allison was calm and open, but his eyes grew troubled. It was a complex exchange and Ruth missed none of it.

He said, “Ruth, what are you doing here?”

“I need a minute.”

“Okay.” He set down his cages and his gloves. That he didn’t question her at all made Ruth feel good. They could still rely on each other, no matter what else.

Ruth caught his arm and drew him aside, glancing at Allison to make certain the girl didn’t follow. Stupid. If she and Cam had touched each other — if they were having sex — Ruth would need to test Allison for the ghost, too, but her instinct was to protect Cam and that meant keeping the contagion a secret as long as possible.