Walter Greatshell - Apocalypse blues

Standing up and making an X with my arms, I screeched, "Wait! I know where it is! Colonel Lowenthal! I know where it's hidden!"

Jake and Julian stared at me, startled.

"I know now! Oh God help us! Please!" Suddenly I knew this hopeless, ragged plea would be the last sound I would ever make. It was just too late. Hector was coming for me, and nothing anyone could do would be fast enough to stop that. I sank to my knees before him and saw points of red dancing all over his body.

With a strobing, brilliant flash, he came apart. Just tumbled to pieces midstride, while the afterimages of that searing light lingered in the air like childish squiggles. He and Shawn both.

The gate rolled open.

"Come on, Lulu," Julian said. "You did it. They're waving us in."

He and Jake were standing over me, dog-tired and dirty as losers at tug-o'-war. I couldn't seem to move or look them in the face. Everything was a hazy jumble of accusatory ghosts, an ever-growing population of those I had wronged crowding my aching head. I was out of my mind. It's a strange thing to be mad and to know it.

"Tyrell's dead," I muttered.

Julian wasn't listening. "Come on, we gotta go."

"We left them there to die. I couldn't tell you."

"She's out of it, man," said Jake, crying.

"I lied about the rations, too. They were giving me extra the whole time."

"Lulu, it's okay."

"They're all dead! Don't you get it?"

"Lulu, it's okay, it's okay." Julian knelt beside me, trying to get me to look at him. "Whatever you're talking about, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that we're still here, and that's because of you. You saved us."

Resisting, wanting to shout, Shut up! Shut up! You're so stupid! I melted and sobbed, "No…"

"Lulu, what do you have? If we're going to survive, you have to tell us what's going on. Obviously, you know something we don't. Quick, before they get here."

Angrily meeting his eyes, I said, "I have something these people want. Something Cowper gave me."

Jake exhaled harshly, head bobbing.

"What is it?" Julian asked me.

"Kind of a… Xombie vaccine. A miracle cure."

"For Agent X? Are you serious?"

"For everything. It's what Agent X was supposed to be: some kind of elixir of life for the fabulously wealthy." I couldn't stop a loony giggle from bursting out. "It's the gift that keeps on giving."

"Are you serious?" Julian took me roughly by the shoulders. "Where is it?"

"Hidden on the boat."

"Holy shit! Lulu! And you didn't tell anyone?" Horror and outrage were driving the initial disbelief from his voice. His hands were a pair of live wires. I could see he felt betrayed, not just for himself but for the whole human race.

"I didn't know," I said. "I didn't realize where it was until just now!"

Julian was about to kill me or something, but Jake stepped in, and said giddily, "She's fucking bluffing, dude. Can't you see that? She's bluffing the fuckers!"

Julian wavered, taken aback. "What?"

"Of course she's bluffing. She's buying us time, tricking them into letting us back on the boat. She's playing 'em!"

Julian turned to me. "Is that what's going on, Lulu? Because if you're not bluffing, and this shit is real, then you absolutely cannot give it to them. It's our only leverage. If you hand it over, we got nothing."

Jake said, "Don't you see? That's the beauty of it. It doesn't even matter if it's real or not. All that matters is that they think it's real! She's got it all worked out!"

"Do you, Lulu?"

I couldn't bring myself to answer. To let them down.

"Ice-cold, man," Jake marveled. "You think she's gonna tell you? Chick is ice-cold."

Don came galloping out the gate, ivory fangs gnashing. The sight of that red, white, and blue-daubed monster ripped us from our funk.

"Bad monkey!" Jake gibbered.

I held their sleeves, and said, "Stay calm, he's tame, he's tame. Just wait."

"Are you sure?"

"He's friendly, you'll see."

"Are you sure?" There was no fight left in them, but they stood their ground, instinctively shielding me from the fantastic beast. Don raced around behind and menaced us toward the compound. Jake said, "If that thing bites me, I'm gonna freak."

"Just walk. He's not going to bite you, trust me." As I said this I caught a peripheral look at the squirming remains of Hector and Shawn, a scalding rebuke to my continued prideful existence. Trust me. The peat fire that was my madness suddenly flared up, and I ran to them, diving to my knees amid their loose parts and trying to piece them back together or something. I don't know what I was doing. Just before Julian dragged me away, I had picked up a small piece of Hector and swallowed it. Screwing my eyes shut, I pressed on the implant with the heel of my hand until pain routed everything else.

Laser dots swarmed us like persistent flies as we were shepherded through the gate.

"Anytime, Lulu."

Colonel Lowenthal's weaselly voice, amplified by the intercom, was piercingly loud in the confines of the cell, a brightly lit metal tank exactly like the ones I had seen holding Cowper and the other Xombies. This time I was on the mirrored side of the glass, sandwiched between Jake and Julian in a space about the size of a phone booth.

I looked at our scruffy reflection and summoned the words, "I want to make a trade." It was not me speaking, but it was so sane-sounding, I said it again: "I want to make a trade."

"We've already made one. I fulfilled my end of the bargain, now it's your turn."

"I'm not going to tell you anything until you return our people to the boat."

"I see."

"Once we're all out there, and Captain Coombs is back in charge, I will let him set the conditions under which we will hand over the materials. I don't think I can make that determination on my own."

"Really? You mean to say that's too much responsibility for an underdeveloped seventeen-year-old girl to handle? I'm shocked. And here I was all prepared to fold."

"Fuck you," said Julian.

"I'm sorry," Lowenthal said, anything but. "I shouldn't joke. It's just funny to me that you think you're in a position to negotiate. You sound like some of the guys we had to deal with here, all polished brass, as if military protocol was some kind of natural law like gravity. They couldn't tell which way the wind was blowing until it blew them away. It was really sad. Lucky for me, I guess. But you're just like them-you think you're privileged to hold on to your illusions, exempt from anything that doesn't suit you. Haven't you learned anything by now? Maybe they let you get away with this on the sub, but if so, I don't know why you're demanding to have that jackass Coombs be put back in charge. Captain Lulu is more like it."

"If you think you're intimidating me, you're wrong," I said. "I know how important what I have is to you. You and your Moguls. Well, tell them they'll never get it without me, not until you set us free."

"Ooooh. Listen to her. Hey, it may be true we'll never find it, lady, but at this point I seriously doubt you know anything helpful. I personally think your papa destroyed it, if it ever really existed, but I'll keep searching every inch of that sub until I know for sure, even if it takes a year. Either way I'm not cutting any more deals. All you're doing now is grasping at straws, trying to buy time. I respect that-it's what I would do in your position-but unless you have something real to offer, it has to end now."

"It is real. I could take you to it right now, right this second, but I guarantee you'll never find it if anything happens to us or anyone else from the boat."

"You're such a baby. Even if that were true, don't you realize your best bet is to accept what you've been so generously offered? Full citizenship in MoCo, security, a halfway-decent future? Life, goddammit! It's the most anyone can hope for now, and you're throwing it away because somebody changed the rules on you, and your feelings are hurt? I don't think so; you're not that dumb. And if you are… well, honey, we no longer have the luxury of being able to save people like you from themselves, I'm sorry."