“He’s tougher than you think,” she said,
casting off my concern as if she knew more about a man’s limits
than I ever could. Me, a man who’d spent his life fighting one war
after another, and had played an integral part in the apocalypse
The Electorate had designed. Did she really think she knew more
than I did about a man’s will to survive?
“His body’s falling apart. His joints are
already wearing thin. He can barely walk. His white blood cell
count is falling. His…”
“Yes, yes,” said Beatrice as she swiped at
the air, shooing me away as if I were merely a fly. “I know all
that. There’s more to a man than diagnostics. He’s got some fight
left in him.”
“We’re going to need to infect someone else,
and he’s got the only chair here.”
Beatrice stopped and regarded me as if
suddenly prompted to account my worth. “I’m sorry. Are you the one
in charge? Are you who will make the decision about who lives and
who dies?” She scoffed and turned away, inciting my anger. “I think
not.”
“Come on,” I said louder than I meant to. She
had a deft ability to inspire hatred and anger in me that set me
closer to the edge than I liked to be. I’d never met a woman more
infuriating than Beatrice Dell. “Let’s go see General
Covington.”
“Tell Richard I’m tired,” said Beatrice,
acting as if I was asking rather than telling her to come along.
“I’ll meet with him in the morning.”
“This isn’t up for debate, babe,” I was
trying to belittle her with the epithet, but I wasn’t as good at
pushing her buttons as she was at pushing mine.
“Everything’s up for debate, Jerald. Or at
least you’d best hope it is. You and your friend are skating on
mighty thin ice. Don’t assume you’ve got the upper hand here,
because I assure you, you don’t.” Her head wobbled as she wagged
her finger at me, like the reproach of a schoolmarm.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I asked
with a jovial tone, as if I was delighted by her antagonism. “If
anyone’s on thin ice, it’s you and your idiot friends.”
Beatrice’s expression turned sympathetic and
she moaned as if in sorrow. “I’m sorry, Jerald. I imagine it must
be hard for you now that you’ve fallen out of favor. To have stood
so high on a pedestal you never knew was rotting beneath you…” She
shook her head and made a ‘tsk tsk tsk’ noise before continuing,
“You’re barely more than a grunt now, but you just don’t see it, do
you?”
“Don’t try to play me,” I said, doing my best
not to give in to the rage she was trying to incite. “Just because
Covington’s working with you doesn’t mean he’s given up. We’ve been
planning this for years, darling. We’re not going down without a
fight.”
“Who exactly do you think you’re fighting
with?” asked Beatrice. She shook her head in disgust and then
walked past me as she muttered, “Idiot.” She went to the door and
then said, “Come on then. If Richard is so anxious to speak to me,
then let’s get it over with. I’m tired and I haven’t had anything
to eat in hours. I’m positively famished. Come on, then. Let’s
go.”
Somehow she’d managed to turn the situation
around and command me to follow her, as if I were the one delaying
here. I bit my lower lip in frustration, and then issued a sharp
laugh as I shook my head. There was a wealth of curses I wanted to
spew, but I held my tongue and escorted the old bitch through the
facility and to the elevator that would take us to the floor where
Covington’s chamber was.
Beatrice continued to chastise me, but I
ignored her as best I could. We entered the airlock that preceded
Covington’s chamber, and the hiss that escaped the walls silenced
Beatrice for a brief moment. The round door of the chamber swiveled
open and I made my way thankfully inside.
Richard was in his chair, an imposing
structure that encompassed much of the center of the room. The
machines that kept him alive and free of pain were blinking
rapidly, as they always did, but he’d silenced their alarms long
ago. He wasn’t in danger of dying. Every precaution had been taken
to ensure his immortality, and the fluids that flowed in and out of
him through the tubes at his side did their part in keeping him as
vital as his scarred shell would allow. There was no one I trusted
more to keep me alive than this man. He’d certainly done a hell of
a job ensuring his own survival.
“Beatrice, good,” he said, his voice stilted
by phlegm. He coughed and white strands of fluid exploded out of
his mouth and over his lip, descending his chin before he caught it
and wiped it away. “I’m glad to see you.”
“Richard,” she said with a nod.
The fact that she addressed the General by
his first name was purposefully antagonizing and caused me to
tense, but Covington remained unperturbed.
“How did your meeting with Levon go today?”
Covington sat forward and his scaly black skin scratched on the
fabric seat. His thin clothes stretched at his neck and he pulled
the elastic to make himself more comfortable. I could see how the
collar had reddened his throat, and I stepped forward to assist. He
waved me away and insisted that he was okay before returning his
attention to Beatrice.
“About as well as always,” she said. “I
suspect he still thinks you’re watching him. He still doesn’t trust
that the cameras are shut off when we meet. I’m never going to get
him to open up to me until he’s sure he’s speaking in anonymity.
You can’t blame him for that.”
Richard nodded, but offered no other
response.
I felt compelled to add a thought, “If we’re
so desperate to find out where his friends are, we could torture it
out of him.”
Beatrice gasped with a combination of
annoyance and disgust, but I didn’t care what she thought of my
tactics. Covington was the only person I reported to, and the only
one that mattered.
Unfortunately, he seemed to share Beatrice’s
disdain for my methods. “No, Jerald. No. He’s too important to risk
that on, and too close to dead as it is. I don’t have any doubt
that he’d be happy to die before telling us a damn thing.”
“Has The Electorate’s stance changed at all?”
asked Beatrice.
“Not yet,” said Covington.
“Assholes.” I couldn’t help but snarl as I
said it.
Covington shifted in his seat and then shook
his head. “No. They’re being smart.”
I was stunned. “Smart?”
“Yes, Jerald.” An edge of annoyance was
apparent in his response. “They’re being smart. They’ve got the
upper hand here.”
“You’re not seriously considering their
offer,” I said, hoping that he wouldn’t say that he was.
“Ideally not,” said Covington. “But we need
to be realistic here. This area’s about to be swarmed with
infected, and we’re going to be woefully underprepared for it. We
can’t leave, and if we stay we’ll run out of supplies in a matter
of months. If you’ve got any suggestions, I’d be happy to entertain
them.”
I was dumbfounded and underprepared as
Covington and Beatrice stared my way. I stuttered as I answered,
“We could… We should think about… Why not evacuate some of the men?
Tell them what’s happening and send them west, over the
mountains.”
“No,” said Covington fast, as if this was an
option he was tired of shooting down. “There would be panic. It’s
took risky.”
“Risky? How is The Electorate’s plan any
safer?”
Beatrice took the opportunity to side with
Covington, making me their adversary, “It’s safer because we can
keep Richard, the Dawns, and The Electorate alive. That’s what you
need to focus on, Jerald. You need to stop fighting us on
this.”
“I’m not going to stop fighting for the lives
of my men,” I said in exasperation. “General, that’s the whole
reason we started this. That’s the whole reason we fought against
The Electorate’s plan.”
“I know that, Jerald,” said Covington,
showing signs of weariness. “Believe me, if we could’ve had it any
other way…” He took a deep breath and the machines that sat beside
him fluttered like an old world Christmas display. “The simple fact
is, either we develop a vaccine or we have to cut loose the
majority of our crew. But we have to keep things running smoothly
as long as possible before we do it. No one can know what’s coming.
They can’t be told about the infection. Business as usual.”
“But we’re going to halt patrols, right?” I
asked in hope that they would allow at least that.
“No, of course not,” said Beatrice before she
looked over at Covington in search of approval. “You should cycle
them longer, of course, but don’t pull them entirely. If you do,
they’ll wonder why. No. Continue sending them out, search for
Levon’s friends, and bring anyone you find back here. That’s the
best chance we have of finding them.”
“But then we risk them bringing back the
infection,” I said. “And it won’t take long before one of them
spots an infected animal. If that happens, then all bets are
off.”
“You must be scanning the groups before they
return already, right?” asked Beatrice.
“Yes,” I said, although it felt like I was
being backed into a corner.
“And they file a report, right?” Her
demeaning line of questioning struck at my anger as if it were a
taut piano wire stretched thin inside of me.
“Yes.”
“Then if they report any strange sightings
you can terminate them.” She snickered as she looked at Covington
and added, “It’s really quite simple, Jerald.”
“It’s simple?” My voice thundered in
Covington’s chamber and I realized that her slow, steady attack had
finally worn me down. I struggled to calm down as I asked, “It’s
simple to kill men that have pledged their lives to me?”
Her response was as cold and calculating as a
snake in a biblical tale, “It’s simple if you focus on the endgame,
Mr. Scott.”
Her use of my surname was as demeaning as any
other time she’d addressed me. This time, instead of using my first
name, she used my last without addressing me with military
formality, as if accentuating the loss of any rank I’d formerly
enjoyed. I clenched my fist, but avoided any actual physical
retaliation.
“The endgame?” I spoke through clenched
teeth.
“Yes, Jerald,” said Covington in agreement
with the bitch. “Our survival. We gambled, and while we haven’t
lost yet, we need to prepare for that possibility. If we do as The
Electorate asks, within a year we won’t just be alive, we’ll be
alive in paradise, safe from this hell.”
Beatrice stood beside him, her arm draped
around the back of his chair as the crippled, shriveled, burned man
sat arched and feeble, his fingers trembling from the exhaustion of
merely speaking to us. The snake was winning.
“Unless we find that kid, or the assassin.
Right?”
“Even then,” said Beatrice, “we’re running
out of time. If I were you, I’d get out in the field myself and see
what I could dig up.”
“If you were me?” I asked with a chortle and
a nod. I could feel my cheeks and ears burning red.
She smiled as she nodded, and she never
looked more wicked.
“General, can I speak with you in private?” I
asked.
He only took a moment to consider the request
before saying, “Not now, Jerald, please. I’m tired. I need to rest
a while.”
“Come on, Jerald,” said Beatrice as she
walked towards me. “Let’s leave Richard be.” She tried to take my
arm, but I pulled away. She went to the door and activated it,
causing the spiral to swivel open and then she offered the yawning
corridor beyond like some elderly model on a game show. I stormed
past.
Beatrice Dell
Jerald was in a huff, but he was locked in
the hall outside of Richard’s room until I closed the door behind
us. Whether he liked it or not, he had to wait for me to let him
through. I lingered, and savored his petulance as he turned and
asked, “Coming?” His lips were thin and pale as he scowled.
I stepped through the portal, and it spun
closed behind me just before the decontamination commenced, locking
us in together for just a moment. I took the opportunity to get
closer to him. Despite how much pleasure I got from his anger,
there was no sense turning him into a bitter enemy. I set my hand
on his shoulder, and felt his tense muscle. He wasn’t a young man
by any stretch, but he was still in admirable shape. His shoulder
wasn’t bony like the men I’d grown accustomed to on the isle.
Instead, my palm cupped a hump of muscle there, and I stroked my
thumb on it.
Once the jets ceased, and the exit opened for
us, I tightened my hold to keep him from charging off. “Jerald,
stay a moment.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Of course you do,” I said with a light tone.
“I’m certain there are a thousand curses you’d like to hurl my way.
And I appreciate you holding your tongue. I’m well aware of how
capable and intelligent you are, and the last thing I want is for
you to hate me.”
He spun on his heel to face me, and then
locked his stature, reminding me of an automaton in an exquisite
German cuckoo clock that adorned my father’s study a lifetime ago.
His square jaw, bristled with whiskers, was taut as he clenched his
teeth, daring not to say what he wanted to. His breath went in and
out of his nose quick and loud and his barrel chest puffed and
deflated with the grandiosity of an opera singer.
“You’re asking me to kill my men,” he said
without giving in to his desire to yell.
I quickly corrected him, “No, I most
certainly am not. The Electorate is asking that of you, not
me.”
“You’re in The Electorate, Beatrice.”
“Was in. Was. That’s an important
distinction. I’m on your side now.”
He gave a wry grin and shook his head. “Not
on my side. Not by a long shot.”
“Listen to me, Jerald, I’m down here with you
now, and my life is in your hands. That puts me squarely in your
corner, my friend, whether you like it or not. I’m here fighting
for my life, and in turn for yours as well.”