Jeff Carlson - Plague War

“I need you to go through with it,” Ruth said gently. Then she realized how that might have sounded. “No, I mean, just keep moving, but I need you to stay ready.”

“If you—” Cam said.

Another voice broke in. Grand Lake’s people had been listening all along and Ruth felt a sickening bolt of panic as a new man on her headset said, “Najarro, this is Major Kaswell. Stand down, soldier. Do you understand? Stand down. If you let her use that nanotech, you’ll kill thousands of your own people.”

Cam didn’t even respond to the other man. “If you think it’s best,” he said.

“I do,” Ruth answered like a promise.

He was the perfect one to shoulder the responsibility. He was accustomed to relying only on himself and to being apart. Maybe he even resented them because he wanted so much to belong but always felt on the outside.

“Cam,” she said, without thinking. Then she repeated it. “Cam, thank you.” She knew they had to keep their conversation short to prevent Grand Lake from triangulating him, and she wanted to make their connection as real as possible. “Don’t worry about me,” she said.

“You’ll be ‚ne.” Then his tone changed. “You let her go or I’ll release the nanotech anyway,” he said to everyone else on the line. Then he hung up. There was so much more to say and they’d never had the chance.

Ruth was shaking. She nearly dropped the button. But she had learned to channel the force of her emotions and she turned it on Shaug and Caruso. She let the tremor show in her voice. “I’ll give you one hour,” she said. “Get your planes ready. We’d better have them in the air before we warn the Chinese, or they might just sterilize this place with another nuke.”

Caruso said, “We need longer than that!”

“One hour. I’m through arguing.”

“Goddamn it, this is insane.”

“We win,” Ruth said. “Do this and we win.”

The parasite had it all, the advanced targeting of the new vaccine and the unparalleled replication speed of the machine plague. Because it lacked the hypobaric fuse, it would spread worldwide in far less time than it had originally taken the plague, ‚lling the atmosphere, riding the jet stream. The nanotech would hit Europe and Africa in days instead of weeks, dooming everyone to the tiny fragments of land above ten thousand feet. With their other war in the Himalayas, the Chinese couldn’t risk it even if the Russians might — and without their allies, the Russians would also fold.

“Think what those bastards did to us,” Shaug said. “You’re going to let them keep California?”

“Some of it. For now. What does it matter?”

“It’s our home! It’s ours.”

“They’ll go back to their homes if we let them. If we give them a little time. They’ll go back or I’ll wipe them out. Just them, don’t you get it?” Ruth knew she could design a new plague to eradicate the enemy — only them, all of them — a smart bug that understood geographical limits. The parasite was merely the ‚rst step in a stunning new level of nanotech.

“Then do it now,” Caruso said. “Kill them now.”

“No.”

He was as exhausted as all of them, she realized at last, and since the invasion he’d seen little except defeat. He would grasp at any straw, but she would never start a genocide if there was any other option. Even a new plague would not be instantaneous. The Chinese would have time to launch their missiles.

The desperate nations around the world simply could not continue ‚ghting. The cost was too steep and there was no end in sight except total collapse.

“It has to stop somewhere,” Ruth said, blazing with sorrow and faith. “It stops today.”

The mountainside was busy with people, a confusion of dark shapes against the lighter earth. Hundreds of them formed two slow-moving chains, following the long V of the two gullies cut into the slope. Dozens more picked their way down through the hills outside of the ravines. Daylight †ashed on weapons and equipment. The late afternoon sun was nearly gone from the eastern face of the Rockies, and its low rays turned everything to shadows or sparks.

Cam stood motionless above a short cliff, squinting into the light. “So many soldiers,” he said.

Allison grinned. “That’s good.”

He shook his head. Grand Lake seemed to be losing a signi‚cant number of troops to desertion and their uniforms added to the disorder. Most of them had taken off their helmets and ‚eld caps. They’d donned civilian jackets or hats. And yet they stuck together for the most part, making concentrations of Marine or Army green despite their efforts to blend. The other refugees tried to avoid them, which was impossible, creating knots and jams within the migration.

There was no ‚ghting that Cam had seen. Everyone was too busy, loaded with packs and slings, but he’d noticed more than one collision. The nearest ravine had a crooked drop in it. Again and again people tripped and fell there, jostling in the crowd. Cam supposed it was only a matter of time before someone’s frustration led to blood. He worried that a lot of the troops were still organized squads. He was especially interested in the loners and small groups who chose to hike through the rougher terrain outside the ravines. Not all of them were heading down. Here and there, tiny ‚gures trudged upward against the larger trend. Why? Allison thought they were giving up. Others were probably looking for places to camp out of the wind, but she agreed that some of them must be hunters sent by Grand Lake to get to Ruth ‚rst.

Cam tugged restlessly at his carbine’s shoulder strap. Then he swung his binoculars to another man standing on a high point across the slope, one of Allison’s people. Cam signaled with his arm straight out from his side, holding the pose until the man saw him and returned the gesture. It meant “I haven’t seen anything.”

Shit, he thought.

They should have planned to meet Ruth somewhere else. This pass was a madhouse, although Cam didn’t know where the situation would be any better. Even the western faces of the Divide must be covered in people. Ruth could walk right past and they’d never see her, but Cam did not complain out loud. Allison and the other mayors had done more than he had any right to expect, mustering nearly forty armed men and women who were willing to stay and watch. They were still at least a day’s hike from Deer Ridge, the nearest town where there would be shelter from the bitter nights, and meanwhile the refugees who’d gone ahead would claim all of the available food, clothing, and other gear.

“I should try to talk to them,” Allison said. She meant the soldiers, he realized. She was staring into the gully below, where four men in coveralls and a USAF jacket moved among the other people. Allison’s scarred cheeks had lifted in another con‚dent grin and Cam smiled at her ambition.

If Ruth got free, it would be due in large part to the other woman’s efforts. Cam was grateful. Allison could have walked away, but she was sel†ess enough to feel her own kind of gratitude. She was smart enough to see an opportunity.

It had been three days since Ruth walked into the command bunker and ended the war. Cam had shut off his cell phone to avoid being tracked, yet they knew from radio reports that the test strikes had been a success. One of the American planes was shot down before delivering the parasite, crashing in the wilderness, but in three spots the Chinese and the Russians suddenly found themselves overwhelmed by the machine plague. Some of them survived. That only helped Ruth’s scheme. The invaders’ aircraft were turned away by their own people in the mountains in Arizona and California, but they managed to ‚nd safe ground just the same, landing on isolated peaks — and they continued to report their survival.