Scott Sigler: Pandemic

They were going to bring it up. Of course they were.

“Nuke it,” she said. It shocked her to hear those words come out of her mouth, but it was the only way to be sure. Massive ecological damage was a small price to pay for ending the threat. “Do it now. Today , Murray, before it gets out.”

Clarence cleared his throat, a tic of his when he was about to politely contradict her.

“Margo, that’s a big step,” he said. “The biggest. And it’s not like we have a nuclear torpedo — they’d have to figure out how to deliver a nuke and put it right on the money.”

Her eyes never leaving Longworth’s.

“They don’t have to deliver it because it’s already there,” she said. “Right, Murray? There’s a nuke onboard the Los Angeles ? Probably about five megatons, enough to completely sterilize everything in a hundred-yard radius?”

The corners of his mouth turned up in a small, wry grin; the master was proud of his pupil. He rubbed his jaw, looked off. Margaret sensed that he had already suggested nuking the site, maybe suggested it to the president herself, and he’d been overruled.

“Destroying it isn’t an option,” Murray said. “If we grab it now, at least we have a chance at containment.”

He was a puppet speaking the words of his controllers.

“This isn’t about containment ,” Margaret said. “The military wants it. They want to see if we can get some genuine alien technology. Great choice on the risk-benefit analysis, Murray.”

He shifted in his seat. “Spare me a lecture, Doc. It’s not my choice. I’ve got my orders. We need to know how that object affected the crew — is this the same thing we saw before or a new phase in the disease’s development? Finding that answer could literally save the world.”

Margaret looked down at the pictures. She tidied them up, then slid them back into the envelope.

She held the envelope out to Murray.

“I already saved the world,” she said. “Twice. I can’t, Murray… I just can’t .”

He struggled to stand. He leaned on the cane, took a step closer to her. His eyes burned with fury. She could see his too-white dentures.

“You hide in this house like a coward,” he said. “You’ve seen horrible things? You’ve done your part? So have I. So has Clarence. So have thousands of other people, and they keep on doing their part. You have a knack for understanding this thing, Margaret. You are the only reason we stopped it last time. You . So how about you pull your head out of your ass, put your pity party to bed, pack a bag and come with me, because I don’t care if you saved the world once, twice, or fifty fucking times” — he shook the cane head at her, the ceiling light glinting dully off the brass helix — “ your job isn’t done . You got the short end of the stick, Margaret. Maybe you’re not a soldier, but you man the wall just like the rest of us.”

Not a soldier . She looked at Clarence. For a moment, she wondered if he’d talked to Murray earlier, if they’d set that up together, but the look on his face said otherwise. Her husband was ashamed he’d said that to her.

She loved him. If this thing got out, he would die. So would she. So would everyone.

You got the short end of the stick, Margaret .

Murray was right. She hated him for it.

“I’ll go,” she said.

Clarence stood. “We’ll be ready in thirty minutes.”

“ Hell no,” Margaret said. “The area is possibly contagious. There’s no benefit to putting you at risk.”

I can’t take seeing you every day; I can barely even look at you right now .

Clarence started to say something, but Murray clonked the bottom of his cane on the floor.

“Stop this,” he said. “You two handle your relationship issues on your own time. Otto is going with you.”

She turned on the old man. “Hold on just a damn second. If you want me there, then you —”

“ He’s coming ,” Murray snapped. “Doc, you are the only choice for this job, but forgive me for being an insensitive prick when I say that you might not be playing with a full deck. Otto has been taking care of you for years. He’s the best qualified to keep you focused.”

“Great,” Margaret said. “So you’re assigning a babysitter?”

“I’ll assign a midget with a whip if that’s what it takes to keep you from reading blog posts about yourself for fifteen hours a day.”

Margaret fell silent. Murray knew all about how far she’d fallen. Of course he knew. Clarence had probably told him.

Murray reached out and took the envelope from her.

“Get packed,” he said. “A car will be here for you in fifteen minutes.”

Cooper Mitchell stared at the accounting program on his computer screen. He willed the numbers to change. The numbers didn’t cooperate.

The force is not strong with this one…

He looked at the company checkbook. Specifically, he looked at the check stub, frayed edges lonely for the check that should have been there.

“Goddamit, Brockman,” Cooper said. “How many times do we have to go through this?”

There was no information on the check stub, of course — Jeff never bothered to do that. Maybe this would be one of the lucky times when he hadn’t spent that much, when he actually came back with a receipt, when his impulse purchase wouldn’t make their account overdrawn. Again.

Cooper rested his elbows on the messy desk, his face in his hands. The dented, rust-speckled metal desk took up most of the small, cinder-block office. The “Steelcase Dreadnaught,” as Jeff called it. It weighed some 250 pounds. Cooper could barely budge the thing; Jeff had once picked it up by himself, held it over his head just to prove that he could. The desk had been here when they’d bought the building and would probably be there when they sold it.

Which, if they didn’t get a client soon, would be within weeks.

Their building bordered the St. Joseph’s River, but the office’s only window didn’t offer that view. Instead, it looked out onto a bare concrete floor. The place had been a construction company garage once; maybe the window was where the foreman watched his people toil away, loudly growling get back to work! every time someone slacked off. The tall, deep shelves lining the walls were filled with diving gear (some functioning, most not), welding rigs, heavy-duty tools and other equipment. He and Jeff hadn’t used some of the pieces in years, but in the underwater construction business you never got rid of something that was already paid for. Never knew when you might need it.

In the middle of the shop floor sat Jeff’s pet project: an old, sixteen-foot racing scow that he had been meaning to fix up for the last five years. The boat, of course, had been purchased with one of the mystery checks. That check had bounced. Jeff still got the scow, though. Since the day they’d met in the third grade, the man could talk Cooper into damn near anything.

Jeff had put in all of eight or nine hours on the scow before he got bored with it, moved on to the next shiny object. But not a day went by when he didn’t talk about making it pristine, selling it for a huge profit. Jeff loved the thing. Cooper wondered if someone would buy it as-is. Maybe it could bring in enough to make that month’s payment on JBS’s only ship, the Mary Ellen Moffett .

Maybe, if anyone was buying. In this economy, no one was.

Through the window, he saw the building’s front door open. Jeff Brockman walked in, carrying a blue SCUBA tank under his left arm. A few brown, windblown leaves came in with him, one sticking to his heavy, shoulder-length hair of the same color. From his right hand dangled an overstuffed white plastic bag — take-out food.