Тим Пауэрс - Bugs and Known Problems

The rest of my section I posted singly at unused side entrances.

The Chapel is only steps from St. Peter’s Square. Its greatest protection is its appearance. From the outside it’s largely nondescript, compared to the glory of the Basilica. For serious trouble, which we didn’t expect, we also had some plain-clothed Guards whose MP7s were discreetly tucked into briefcases.

The real action couldn’t start until the Camerlengo returned. Oberstleutnant von Messen, our vice-commander, was also on hand. I relied on his link to our operations center via his low-profile earpiece and cuff mike. They’d all settled in for the first of what we assumed would be many watches, waiting for the cardinals to argue the merits of this or that candidate before holding several rounds of voting.

Back in the 13th century, one election lasted two years, but the modern ones average three days. I was counting on one day, at most. The wearers of the crimson from beyond Rome were ready to return home nearly the moment that their slippered feet touched the gray concrete of the Vatican’s helipad.

The good news was that I guessed over long. The conclave didn’t last even a single day.

The bad news was that we didn’t get a new pope out of it.

We never did determine which cardinals carried the virus into the Sistine Chapel that day. The College takes its privacy very seriously and literally locks itself in the chapel. Hell, even the word "conclave" is drawn from “cum clave,” Latin for “with a key.” Over the years, acoustic insulation and thicker doors improved their isolation. The red wax seals on the ornate double doors were for show, but the reinforced locks and steel bars were quite real.

However, like I’ve said, the cardinals are mostly older men. Appointed for life, they nonetheless suffer the limitations of the flesh and old men’s bladders. As a result, if there is one thing that they like more than their comforts it’s a predictable schedule. When no one came to admit our party, escorting the only man who could count the ballots for the papal election at the appointed hour, we were surprised.

Four hours later, we were mildly alarmed. Why no phone, video teleconference or computer, you ask? Why no externally accessible lock, you know, for emergencies ? Why not give the Carmelengo a secret key?

Tradition.

Another hour passed.

Daring mightily, von Messen sought the permission of Crivetto to open the vestibule grille, a sort of two-way peep hole. We couldn’t see through to the other side, since the opposite grille was closed.

But we could hear.

And what we heard was screaming and fighting. Though past conclaves have been… exciting, this was a new thing, even in a world of rapidly devolving and unpleasant novelties.

When the Cardinal Camerlengo bade us open the door, we had to use a gasoline powered saw. The ceramic blade initially chattered on the steel reinforced doors, before settling into a long scream that left our ears ringing, mercifully drowning out the terrible sounds within. The doors sprang inwards suddenly, and we were treated to a view of Hell.

There was blood, bodies and parts of bodies everywhere. Immediately in front of the doors, a naked cardinal crouched over a freshly dead man whose robes were torn and pushed out of the way, exposing the soft abdomen and spilled purple entrails. The afflicted’s bloody face was pure feral hate, and it growled as if daring us to take its prey. Howls and screams rose even higher around the room as several more infected stood from their gory meals.

The Gendarme sergeant with the saw had stepped involuntarily into the room as the doors yielded, pulled inside by the weight of the cutting tool. I saw as he began to recoil, horrified at the sights before us.

Faster than thought, he was knocked sideways by another zombie.

I thought I recognized his Eminence from Argentina, but von Messen had drawn his pistol as the doors were cut open and was already servicing targets. Hastened by the regular metronome of my commander’s fire, I almost fumbled my own pistol, but managed to get my first rounds into another zombie that staggered towards us, slowed by terrible wounds that exposed the lower bones of one leg. The Gendarme was screaming and trying to scramble backwards across the blood slicked floor, his saw abandoned.

I’m ashamed to say that my marksmanship was not the magical thing that always seemed to be the case in American action films. After stopping the lurching infected, I ran through rest of my entire magazine, trying and failing to drop the second infected. Korporal Muller was behind me, and even as the infected closed to grabbing distance, Muller ran his halberd straight into its throat.

The zombie fought and struggled to get around the polearm, its hands pulling at the shaft. Muller was shaken like a fisherman overcome by the ferocious jerking motions of a giant catch, but he kept the zombie a safe meter away from me as it weakened, and blood pulsed out around the exposed part of halberd blade. The distinctive rattle of a MP7 rang in my ears, deepening the tinnitus that already sang so loudly as to nearly drown out everything else.

Enough of the 9mm rounds found the zombie’s head that it dropped to the worn tiles of the chapel.

"Back two steps, and rally!" von Messen screamed, even as he stooped to help the wounded sergeant, still scrabbling on the floor. "Close the doors!"

In that moment, there wasn’t time to puzzle out how in heaven so many of the College turned in so short a time. Later, we determined that there were only twelve mobile infected left when we broke in. We also found out the how. But at the time, it seemed like all the zombies in the world were charging us, keening and screaming for our life’s blood.

Von Messen had given up on helping the sergeant to his feet and simply towed him backwards through the ruined doors, fighting the pull of an infected who still maintained a literal death grip on the injured man. The trio left a broad smear of scarlet across the black and white mosaic tile.

Boivin drove the head of his partisan through one of the zombie’s arms, searching for connective tissue to cut the policeman free. I finally completed my magazine change. More of my section had clattered up, and their sturdy halberds held off the struggling zombies that were gathering around the open doorway. Even at touching distance it is very easy to pull your shot and strike the wrong target. With exquisite care, I stretched, placing the muzzle of my pistol nearly in contact before shooting the infected off the sergeant.

One more hard tug and we were through. As soon as the second door closed, we stood panting.

And bleeding.

The gendarme sergeant was bitten in multiple places. Round-eyed, he looked at the worst of it, a great scallop of missing flesh on one calf, and tried to squeeze his wounds closed with his shaking hands. By now, we all knew what a bite from an infected meant. I exchanged a look with von Messen as he barked orders into his wrist microphone, demanding that a first aid team join us at the doors of the chapel.

"Herr Oberstleutnant," I began, staring at his hand.

Our vice-commander glanced down and grimaced. A set of tooth punctures wept red death across his wrist.

"This man murdered His Holiness!" yelled the archbishop. His cloth of gold robes flapped as he gesticulated wildly. "And then he killed the vice-commander of the Papal Guard!"

Seated at the right hand of the Camerlengo, he flung one arm outwards, pointing towards the place where I was standing against the wall.

The Camerlengo had called an emergency meeting of the senior surviving officials. The excited archbishop was screaming himself hoarse at my presence and was becoming borderline hysterical. I can’t say that it was making me any calmer, considering what I had just been asked to do not even half an hour earlier.