Jeff Carlson - Plague War

It would be perverse, but Cam also wondered if she was upset because she wasn’t responsible for the advances that had brought the nanotech this far. Life wasn’t like TV, where every success belonged only to the hero. Sometimes you could only react to other people’s accomplishments. They’d seen enough twists and surprises to know that was true. Cam thought Ruth had learned not to let her own ego work against her, and yet the fact remained that she was playing catch-up to other people’s work, when for most of her career she had been the hotshot. That must be tough, so he only smiled at her.

“Sit with me for breakfast,” she said.

“If I can.” Cam was important to the job, too, standing guard in three-hour watches just like the other Rangers, supporting the team and contributing to their ever-changing plans. Given a moment of privacy, Cam would have said more. You know why I’m here, he thought, but Deborah stirred beside Ruth with her chin tilted up in that aggressive way, so Cam only smiled again and turned to go.

Deborah disapproved of him. Their backgrounds could not have been more different. The basic EMT classes he’d taken before the plague were a joke compared to her years of education, and he was de‚nitely not a book that was judged well by its cover. A haircut and a clean uniform had only made his scarring more prominent, whereas Deborah’s skin was clear and unblemished— and Ruth’s temples and left cheek remained lightly marked from their long run in goggles and masks.

Whether she realized it not, Cam thought that on some level Deborah was pulling at Ruth to keep her from becoming any more like him. Deborah was a good friend to Ruth. Cam liked her for it even if they didn’t get along. The bottom line was that Deborah Reece could be arrogant, even rude, but she had been safe in Grand Lake and she’d walked away from it for the greater good.

* * * *

Cam still wondered how close Ruth had come to being told she couldn’t leave. Governor Shaug hadn’t wanted to see Deborah go, either, or the elite troops or the atomic force microscope that Ruth demanded.

In the end, Ruth convinced him there was far more worth to be had if she succeeded. She had also lost her value as a bargaining chip. Shaug could no longer †y her to the labs in Canada in exchange for food or weaponry, because Grand Lake’s allies had issued a quarantine. The ghost nanotech seemed limited to Colorado. They didn’t want to be infected themselves. They continued to coordinate their militaries with Grand Lake, but planes out of Colorado were no longer permitted to divert anywhere else even if they were hit or low on fuel. Colorado ground troops in need of help would not see reinforcements except from other Colorado units.

Governor Shaug must have been desperate to change that edict, and Ruth could be forceful when the mood struck her. In Sacramento, Cam had seen her yell at seven armed men when she disagreed with them, so it intrigued him that she was tentative with him.

There was no reason to ask him to join her except that she trusted him. Loved him. The Rangers were a top-notch escort, whereas he was a complication.

Newcombe had opted out. Cam was disappointed, but he couldn’t resent the soldier for his choice. Newcombe had ‚t himself back into the larger whole of Grand Lake exactly as he’d always intended. Newcombe just didn’t have the same ties to Ruth. During all their time together, she’d chosen Cam instead, and he hoped she would do it again if Deborah continued to force the issue.

* * * *

She did. The next morning she brought Cam tea and oatmeal as he helped Wesner and Foshtomi load their gear into the jeeps. Later that day she even used Allison as an excuse to talk to him about their days in Grand Lake. She took another blood sample herself. She said she had to monitor how they were being exposed themselves, dealing with the refugees, but Foshtomi noticed that she let Deborah draw blood from the rest of the group.

Foshtomi was delighted by their slow-motion romance because she was just one of the guys in her squad, Cam thought. She kept tabs on Ruth because it allowed her to be a woman.

That Ruth was watching you again last night, Foshtomi would say, or, Did you see how that Ruth waited to eat until you were done helping Mitchell with the fuel cans?

It was true. “That Ruth” found time to be with him despite everything else, even if it was just for a few minutes — and she had to be the one who approached him, because Captain Park gave her all the latitude she wanted, whereas Cam was always busy as a member of the squad.

In many ways he enjoyed that pressure. The Rangers were a well-oiled machine. Their power appealed to Cam. They imposed order and direction on their world, which was a remarkable feat.

By their ‚fth day, the land above the barrier pinched into a thin neck of ground along the Continental Divide, forcing them to turn west below ten thousand feet. Highway 40 ran eastward through the sheer peaks, zigzagging up through to the other side of the Divide and the refugee populations that had formed above the small cities of Empire, Lawson, and Georgetown, but the highway was thick with old traf‚c and new rockslides. Fires had blackened the mountainsides even where there was nothing to burn except damp moss and weeds. Ash and dust lay across the earth in vast streamers. It whispered up beneath their tires and boots. Three of the Rangers now wore radiation badges clipped to their jackets and Captain Park also had a Geiger counter that chittered and clacked at times. They seemed to be edging through an area where the fallout had settled after the explosion. They were lucky the prevailing weather was out of the northwest, behind them. It had carried most of the poison east, but the radiation was another reason to go west from the Divide.

They spent two days in a long, green valley cut into the mountains by a good-sized creek that had brie†y become a colossal †ood. Nearer to ground zero, most of the snowpack had been vaporized, but at this distance the snow immediately slumped away as water and slush, increasing the landslides caused by the quake. Their jeeps rocked and crashed through banks of gravel, muck, and driftwood. They broke one of their four shovels digging a way through. They also encountered three groups of survivors. This valley faced north and had escaped the worst of the damage. Many of the aspen and spruce were still standing and the water ran clear — and there was nothing in this place to attract the air war, only wilderness.

Finally they made it up through the Ute Pass, where Highway 9 arrowed south toward Interstate 70. On this high point, the blast wave had lifted cars by the thousands, overturning the old metal shapes. The road was a mess of broken glass and odd drifts of rust and paint †akes, and Captain Park took them back north instead of following the highway toward Leadville. He refused to move deeper into the blast zone. Ruth’s few protests were soft-spoken and confused.

Ruth was haggard beneath her sunburn. She worked nights with her AFM and tried to nap in the day when they were on the move, but it must have been like sleeping on the back of an elephant. The jeeps bumped and seesawed on the rocky earth, stopping and starting as the Rangers jumped down to push wrecks or boulders out of the way. She was exhausted. She carried that goddamn stone everywhere.

She thought she’d failed. Two of the refugee groups they’d met in the valley had been clean. They’d infected those people themselves. Yes, she’d given them the vaccine, but at the cost of tainting them with the ghost, too. We couldn’t have known, Cam told her. Ruth only grimaced and shook her head. They seemed to have lost the trail.

They were running out of time. Open broadcasts out of Grand Lake constantly advised American forces of enemy action, and Chinese armored units had pushed into Colorado.