Peter Clines: Ex-Patriots

“It is a wise precaution,” said Stealth. She’d listened on her own earpiece without looking away from the Mount’s defenses. “As you were, Zzzap.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Barry. They could all hear his grin. A pair of gold flowers exploded across the sky and another cheer came from below.

St. George looked up at the display and pretended not to watch the woman next to him.

“If it matters so much to you that I take part,” she said, not lifting her gaze, “please just say so.”

He shrugged. “I just think it would be good for you, too. You need a morale boost as much as anyone else. Maybe more.”

“I do not find it as easy as some to set aside my responsibilities for a few hours of frivolous entertainment,” said Stealth. “Especially to celebrate the anniversary of a country which, in most senses, no longer exists. There are always more pressing concerns.” She looked out across the dark metropolis.

He followed her gaze. Each burst of light illuminated the city. Beyond the high walls of the Mount, past the barricaded gates and the rows of abandoned cars in the streets, he could see the other inhabitants of Los Angeles.

The ex-humans.

The more distant ones staggered aimlessly. Closer to the Mount, where they could see the guards, they clawed at barriers and reached through gates. They made slow swipes with emaciated fingers. Not one of them reacted to the thunderclaps. Not one of them looked up at the brilliant display in the nighttime sky.

Not one of them was alive.

From the top of the water tower he could see tens of thousands of the walking dead—maybe hundreds of thousands—stumbling through the streets in every direction. During the flashes of light, he could pick out some with twisted limbs and many more stained with blood.

The sounds of celebration and the echo of Zzzap’s fireworks almost hid the chattering. The constant noise that reached everywhere in Los Angeles, that echoed off every building and down every street. The mindless click-clack of dead teeth coming together again and again and again.

If Stealth’s estimates were correct—and they almost always were—there were just over five million of them within the borders of the city.

St. George sighed. “You can really kill the mood sometimes, you know that?”

“My apologies.”

I was in my private lab, gathering the notes for my one-thirty lecture. My teaching assistant, Mary, was dividing her time between searching for the flash drive which contained my PowerPoint slides and organizing a pile of correspondence and journals that had spilled onto the floor from my desk. To her credit, she’d let the papers fall and grabbed the photos of my wife and daughter.

My beard was scratching against my collar. I’d wanted to have it trimmed before the start of the semester and lost track of time. Now I was heading off to my fourth lecture and it still was a shaggy mess of too-much-silver hair. Eva hates it when my beard gets too long. It was short when we met in grad school. I needed to stop by the campus barber before I ended up looking any more like Walt Whitman.

I heard the door open behind me while I packed my briefcase, but thought nothing of it until I heard my name.

“Doctor Emil Sorensen?”

The speaker was a young man I didn’t recognize. He wore a well-tailored suit he looked uncomfortable in. A double-Windsor-knotted tie. Tight, cropped hair above sharp eyes.

I’d seen this ploy many times. Every professor sees it at least once or twice a semester. There are a few different names for it, but here the faculty calls it the VIP play. An undergrad tries to look or sound important to put themselves on equal footing with their instructor. Then they explain the extenuating circumstances behind a certain grade or exam result. They drop the names of people who would be disappointed because of it. Which all leads, of course, to the suggestion they should be allowed to resubmit a paper, retake a test, or—in some bold cases—simply have their grade changed to something acceptable.

I was running late and it was too early in the semester for such schemes. “You have ninety seconds,” I said. “Can I help you with something?”

Even as I spoke, two more men stepped in behind the first. They were larger and more solid than him. One carried an attaché case. All their suits matched.

Mary stopped looking for the flash drive. Her gaze shifted from me to the trio of men.

“John Smith,” said the man. “I know it sounds like a joke, but that’s really my name. I’d like to speak with you for a few moments, if I could.” He had a broad smile I knew from fundraisers and alumni dinners. A practiced smile, but not a well-practiced one.

“This really isn’t the best time. I have a lecture in about ten minutes on the other side of campus, and—”

“I hope you’ll forgive me,” said Smith, “but I took the liberty of canceling your lecture.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“John Smith,” he repeated. The smile faltered as his hand fumbled with a leather wallet. He opened it to reveal a golden badge and a set of credentials with his photo. He was smiling in the photo. “Agent Smith, technically. I’m with the Department of Homeland Security, seconded to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Could we speak alone, sir?”

He said the last with a nod to Mary. She looked at me with wide eyes. We all spoke a bit too freely at times, and on a college campus paranoia and rumors about the Patriot Act ran like wildfire. “Doctor?”

I tried what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Why don’t you go see if there are any stragglers at Bartlett Hall,” I told her. “Let them know this delay doesn’t mean they’re off the hook for next week’s test.”

She gathered her own papers and paused to make sure I saw the flash drive she’d uncovered. The smile graced Smith’s face the entire time. He gave Mary a polite wave as she slipped out between the two larger men. They closed the door behind her.

“So what’s this all about?”

Smith’s face relaxed. As the smile faded, he gained several years. Not a young man, but cursed with the face of one. One of the other biochem professors had the same problem. A young face in a college town meant always being carded at the store and never being taken as seriously as your colleagues.

“You’re a very impressive man, Doctor Sorensen,” he said. “You’ve got more doctorate degrees than I’ve got years of education. Physiology. Neurology. Biochemistry. A forerunner in molecular nanotechnology and—”

“I know my own credentials.”

“From what I’ve read, you got cheated out of the Nobel prize last year.”

“It’s not about winning prizes,” I said. “Besides, the gene modification techniques Evans and the others developed are brilliant. They even helped my own work.”

“Of course,” Smith agreed with a polite nod. “You’ve received several grants from DARPA over the past twenty years. If I read the file right, your contract’s been renewed a record-breaking seven times. In fact,” he gave a forced chuckle, “you started working for the government just before my eighth birthday.”

“Can you please get to the point, Mr. Smith?”

The smile faltered again. “Well, doctor, the fact is they want to bring you on full time and put you in charge of—”

“Not interested.”

His face dropped. “You don’t even know which project I was going to say.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m comfortable with my arrangement the way it is.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”