Jaspre Bark - Dawn Over Doomsday

"Sir," said Simon Peter. "We've underestimated these Injuns before, there any chance they'll try a surprise attack on us here? Throw everything they got at us, like a retribution thing?"

"I doubt it. If they thought they had enough men to take us on and win they'd have left an army behind to protect the place or at least tried to attack us on the move. No, my way of thinking is that this suits their purposes just as much as it suits ours."

"Start of a beautiful relationship," said Golding with a chuckle.

"Amen to that," said Colt.

Cortez finished his first prayer of the day, bowed to Mecca and stood. Anna finished up her prayers and turned to smile at him. She had taken to joining him in his devotions every day. She prayed to Christ while he gave thanks to Allah most merciful and the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him.

It had become their little ritual. They had also begun to discuss one another's faiths, with a genuine willingness to learn from each other. Cortez's respect for the extraordinary young lady had grown tenfold.

Cortez had noticed that the fallen woman's respect for Anna had also grown, the two of them seemed quite close after their night on the mountain. This, along with her effectiveness in a fight, had made Cortez hate Linda less.

Linda was at the stove when they climbed back in the vehicle. "How do you like your rat?" she said. "Rare, medium or burnt?"

"Don't we have anything else to eat?" said Greaves. "Rat gives me indigestion."

"Don't you have a pill for that?" said Linda winking at Anna. "I'm afraid rat's the only thing on the menu. You should be thankful I managed to catch these. All we've got is those two tins of corn, which may or may not be edible. They come from that batch we scavenged in West Point, half of which weren't edible. 'Cept for that we've got some wizened apples we picked a few weeks back. Way I see it, that's lunch and dinner taken care of."

Greaves pulled a face. "We'll make Torrington in a few hours," he said. "It's just over the border in Wyoming. I'm sure we can pick up some rations there."

"What's in Torrington?" said Linda "The world's last surviving Walmart?"

"No. Beneath the City Hall and Police Department on 21st Avenue is an underground complex of offices built by military intelligence. It has an independent generator which can easily be started, and a host of cutting-edge information technology. Doubtless there will also be food stores down there somewhere."

"And stuff we can sell?" said Linda.

"Yes. There will be lots of things we can sell."

"But you've got your own particular reason for going there haven't you?" said Linda. Cortez had noticed that she could never take anything on trust. She always had to question and undermine Greaves. She probably did not like men very much, Cortez thought. Considering what she did for a living, this didn't surprise him.

"There are schematics on the memory stick we retrieved in Indiana that I have to access. They show the underground laboratories near Little Bighorn in Montana. I need to study them to find us a way in. Torrington is the only place on the way with computers that I can realistically get to work."

"What is it with you and underground buildings? Everyplace you take us is hidden deep within the bowels of the earth. Did one of your ancestors breed with a mole or something?" Greaves ignored her question. Linda finished cooking and they ate in silence.

"You know there's a few things that bother me about this whole trip," said Linda, after gnawing the last bit of flesh off her rat bones. Cortez sighed. He was just beginning to find her company bearable. "I know I was hired to take you to Montana. But I don't know if I'm happy with what's going to happen once we get there."

"What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean. When we do break into this underground laboratory with Anna, what happens next?"

"Why, we save the world of course."

"You mean you infect an innocent girl with an experimental virus that's supposed to be a hundred times deadlier than the one that just wiped out most of the planet. I'm sorry, but the more I think about your story, the less I buy it."

"But I explained about the Doomsday Virus. I told you that Anna was specially bred to be its host."

"You gave us some wild science-fiction story about a virus that's going to fall in love with a girl and make her an immortal goddess. That sounds a lot more like a fairy tale than hard science to me."

"But it's true," said Greaves. "Who's the scientist here, me or you? I've seen and helped create things that are beyond the comprehension of most human beings. Who are you to start questioning me?"

"Okay then. Let's say everything you told us is true. That Anna is the special one chosen by the Doomsday Virus and that you got to her before your old buddies did. How do we know we're not playing right into their hands by bringing her to their laboratory? Come to that how do we know you're not still working for them and that all this is part of their plan to get their hands on Anna?"

"If I was still working for an organisation with the resources that they have why the hell would I put my life in constant danger travelling across the country like this?" said Greaves. "And why do you suddenly care so much? Like you said, you were hired to do a job."

"Because it's stopped being just a job. Because I care about Anna and I don't want you to put her in danger or feed her up to some killer plague germs."

Cortez couldn't keep his mouth shut any longer. "I never thought I'd say this but I agree with the whore."

"Thanks big guy, you sure know how to sweet talk a girl."

"I'm not trying to flatter you," said Cortez. "But I do share your misgivings. You've paid me well Greaves. I've earned what you've given me and it's fair to say the rewards have been good. Nonetheless a man has his limits."

"A man has his limits," said Greaves. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means that I too care about Anna. There is something special about her and I don't want to see her used like some lab rat in one of your experiments."

"Of course she's special," said Greaves. Cortez had never seen him so close to losing control. "I've been saying that right from the start. Don't you see what we're a part of? Don't you realise what we could do? We could change the whole world for the better. All this chaos and disorder, all this pain and death and suffering. It doesn't have to be for nothing. We could build a new world. We could bring about paradise on Earth."

"Paradise is to be found in the hereafter," said Cortez. "With Allah, the almighty."

"And what if you're wrong?" said Linda. "What if we end up wiping out what's left of humanity?"

"My friends," said Anna, joining the conversation for the first time. "I thank you both from the bottom of my heart for your concern. And I too never thought I would say this, but I agree with Mr Greaves."

"You do?" said Greaves. There were tears of gratitude in his eyes. "I mean of course you do. Obviously you do."

"I have prayed long and hard for guidance since you told me about my true origins, about this disease for which you say I'm to be a host and Mr Greaves is right, all this suffering and death doesn't have to be for nothing."

"Exactly," Greaves said, there was a trace of hysteria in his voice. Cortez had not realised quite how much this meant to him. "Of course it doesn't."

"I know what Mr Greaves has said to be true because I have felt this contagion calling to me, calling to every part of my being. As I said to you Mistress Linda it knows I am coming and it hungers for my company. Hungers like Satan himself hungers for lost souls. I have searched every part of my being and I have spoken almost constantly with my Maker and I now believe there is a reason why I alone, out of all the poor children, crafted by Satan's scientific arts, am alive. This plague is more dangerous than anyone, including you Mr Greaves, realise. Yet it is my destiny to be joined with it. God himself has willed it thus."