Jeff Carlson - Plague War

Their only true protection was the vaccine nano. But it could be overwhelmed. In an ideal scenario, it would kill the plague as soon as the invader touched their skin or lungs. In reality, its capacity to target the plague was limited, and it functioned best against live, active infections. That was a problem. Inhaled or otherwise absorbed into a host body, the plague took minutes or even hours to reactivate, and in that time it could travel farther than was easily understood. A human being was comprised of miles upon miles of veins, tissue, organs, and muscle — and once the plague began to replicate, the body’s own pulse became a weakness, distributing the nanotech everywhere.

The vaccine was not so aggressive. It couldn’t be. It was able to build more of itself only by tearing apart its rival. Otherwise it would have been another machine plague. Ruth had taught it to recognize the unique structure of the plague’s heat engine, which it shared, and she had given it the ability to sense the fraction of a calorie of waste heat that plague nanos generated repeatedly as they constructed more of themselves, but the vaccine was always behind its brother. It was always reacting. It was smaller and faster, able to eradicate its prey, but only after the chase.

Fortunately, in one sense, the plague had a tendency to bunch up in the extremities and in scar tissue, attacking the body’s weakest points ‚rst. The vaccine gathered in the same way, but more than once they had all suffered some discomfort as the endless war continued inside them.

With Ruth, it was her broken arm. The swollen, clotted tissue there seemed to act as a screen, trapping the nanos in her wrist and keeping them down in that hand, eating her away a bit at a time. She was terri‚ed of being crippled. She worried about it almost compulsively because anything more was unthinkable. Hemorrhaging. Stroke. Heart attack. Death.

For an instant she stared at Cam, shaking all over. But behind the white light in his hand, he was only a shadow, faceless and distant. Ruth bent and grabbed her pack, pushing off of Newcombe as he switched on his own †ashlight. There was no chance she’d bother to pack up her sleeping bag. She immediately began to climb down from the truck, swinging her foot over the side.

“Ruth—”

“You’re sixty pounds heavier than me!” she screamed, wild with fear and envy. “Goddammit! I’ll always have it worst! I’ll always be closer to maxing out!”

“Just let me get in front,” Cam said, jumping down from the boat. He landed hard. The beam of the †ashlight splashed over his chest, but he quickly gathered himself and took one step away from the truck.

Ruth gritted out words. “We need to get inside. Somewhere clean.”

“Okay.” Cam played his light over the street and changed direction, glancing back once at Newcombe. “Move,” he called. “We can douse ourselves on the move.”

Newcombe hustled after them, a second wand of light. He caught up as they reached the sidewalk and gestured with his free hand. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll check this house. You two stay here.”

Ruth made a sound like laughter, like sobbing. It felt insane to wait out at the edge of the patchy dry lawn beside the mailbox. In the dark, this small space looked so normal and perfect, even as she burned, but Newcombe’s decision was inarguable. His sacri‚ce.

If there were skeletons inside, the home would be packed with nanotech. The plague was bad along the highway, where so many people had been disintegrated, but it had also been swept by wind and rain. There were safer pockets here and there, and they tended to settle down on the upwind side, using their own nerves to gauge how thick the plague might be. They’d had mixed luck trying to camp inside. A sealed room was priceless, but a single body could be exploded into millions of the damned things and they needed to avoid concentrated spikes in exposure. Worse, it might not be obvious that anyone was dead inside a building. In the ‚nal extreme, most people had hidden themselves away, crawling into corners and closets.

Opening every door was a good way to overload the vaccine, but that kind of inspection was necessary. Houses with bodies were also houses with bugs. Either the ants had come through, often leaving a colony behind, or the rot eventually made the place more attractive to termites and beetles.

Hunched over her arm, Ruth watched Newcombe approach the two-story home. He skimmed his light along the front of the building, making sure there were no broken windows.

Cam said, “What else can we do? Ruth? What else?”

“Nothing. Wait.” Oh God, she thought. Maybe she said it out loud, too.

“Here’s another mask. Put it on over your other one. You need help? Here.” He dropped his backpack and carefully snugged the band of fabric down over her hood and goggles. “I’m going to check next door in case we—”

“Bones!” Newcombe shouted, and Cam pulled at her.

“Go,” he said. “Go.”

They were all speaking as if surrounded by a loud noise, repeating words for clarity. They were each alone, Ruth understood. She hurried alongside Cam as Newcombe’s bootsteps ran up behind them and it was eerie and horri‚c to feel caged when there was nothing around her except the open street— caged on the inside.

Then she was in darkness. Both men had aimed their †ashlights at the next house. Its front door hung open and Newcombe said, “Skip it, keep moving.”

Ruth dropped one foot off the edge of the sidewalk. She fell, ramming her shin, but she scrambled up again with the dogged focus that had served her so well in her career. Her thoughts narrowed down to one rigid point. Keep moving.

Cam seized her jacket. “Slow down,” he said. “We need to be careful.”

She ran after Newcombe’s light. She knew too much. Few teenagers and no children survived any signi‚cant infection. Their smaller bodies were a liability, and Ruth would always be closer to major trauma than the two men.

The hate she felt was senseless and crazy and yet it was there, crashing against her pain. She tried to hide it. “Come on!” she yelled. She had nothing to gain by accusing him, but why hadn’t Cam warned them? He had been awake. He was supposed to be awake, whispered the new hate. Then she fell again. Her boot stubbed on something and she rolled over a brittle hedge and collapsed. It was like being slapped.

Ruth didn’t move, trembling, quiet, listening to the agony in her arm. Even the seesaw of emotions had left her.

“I said slow down!” Cam’s light strobed up and down her body. The beam was full of swirling dust and Ruth saw a little black yard lantern tangled around her shin, its power cord uprooted. “You could break your fucking leg,” Cam said roughly, kneeling. He yanked at the cord and for the ‚rst time she realized he was twitching. He snapped his head again and again, trying to rub his ear on his shoulder.

Ruth looked up at a nearby whump . Newcombe was at the front door, putting his shoulder into it. Suddenly the frame splintered and he stumbled in.

“We’re going to be all right,” Cam said, but the words were just useless sounds. Helpful sounds.

Ruth nodded. None of this was his fault. The truck might simply have more nanotech adhered to it than the boat, and Cam had his size advantage. Long ago, he’d also suffered considerable damage to his feet and hands and one gruesome ear. He was unlikely to notice an infection before her. It was just that she’d come to expect everything of him, fair or unfair.

“Can you get up?” he asked, reaching for her.

“Clear! I think it’s clear!” Newcombe yelled inside the house, and Ruth and Cam hurried to the neat front walk with its welcome mat still in place.