The Plague Forge [ARC] (32 page)

Tania stood then. Something insider her ignited, brighter than the flare, brighter than the fucking sun.

She picked up the bag that held the alien object and hurled it toward the slope in the hallway.

A second later two more subs came down the incline. Instead of rushing at her, they fell on the bag, clawing at it to reach the artifact within. Tania picked up Vanessa’s gun and walked calmly forward. In the hazy red light it became easy to forget these beings had once been human. She put a single bullet into their heads from point-blank range, ignoring the sick way they convulsed, the fine spray of blood that dotted the glass of her helmet. Then she leaned against the wall and waited for the next. She shot that one, too. When the fourth came the gun clicked empty. Tania tossed it aside and threw her arms around the creature’s neck, covering its mouth and nose as she’d been trained to do. The animal—that’s what it was, an animal—began to claw violently at her arms but she held on until the body went slack against her. Tania let go. The body collapsed at her feet.

She stepped back again and waited, but no more came. Then something brushed her arm and Tania wheeled, lashed out, only to see Vanessa next to her. The woman raised her hands defensively until Tania relented.

The tears Vanessa had cried for Pablo ran in two vertical streaks down her dust-coated skin. Yet her expression held no sign of grief now. She reached out to Tania, grabbed her helmet, and twisted.

So this is it,
Tania thought.
We kill ourselves, like Jake did, rather than let them get us
.

There was no hiss of air when the seal broke and the helmet came away. Tania ignored that and sucked in a breath of gritty air. She almost coughed, but somehow managed to choke it down. “I should have saved a bullet for each of us, I guess,” Tania said.

“Don’t say that,” the woman replied. “We need to run now. Can you do it?”

“My helmet,” Tania said numbly. “You—”

“The suit is torn,” Vanessa said. She lifted one of Tania’s arms and showed her. The material had been raked to shreds by the subhuman she’d strangled. “Take this knife. I’ll carry the … thing.”

“It’s hopeless,” Tania said, watching the immune shrug the bag that held the alien artifact onto her back. Her head pounded; whether it was from the near asphyxiation or the tainted air she now breathed, she had no idea.

Vanessa gripped her by the shoulder and growled her words. “It’s not. We’re going. The towers aren’t far, Tania. We’ll fight our way and finish this for him. Do you understand?”

Tania stammered.

“Go!”

She went. Up the slope, knife held before her pointed downward from her clenched fist, a style that allowed her to punch and slice rather than risk burying the knife into something and losing it. By the time she reached the top of the incline her head pounded. SUBS, already working its way into her brain. The first symptom, the headache, she knew lasted anywhere from one minute to as much as ten. Ten minutes, if she was lucky, to get to the aura and suppress the virus with nothing more than a pain in the skull to deal with. She’d be like Karl, popping painkillers with every meal, forever. If the disease progressed beyond that, she’d likely be killed on the spot by the collapse of her mind. If she survived, Vanessa would either kill her or leave her here in the wilderness.

The immune still held the flare, running a few paces behind Tania. The red light’s jerky motion made Tania’s own shadow sway, grow, and shrink in front of her as if she were trying to catch up to a demon.

Her head felt like it had been clamped in a vise. Vision began to blur. She stumbled, righted herself just as the tunnel turned and angled down, then up. Another turn. Something was running toward her. For an instant she thought it was a dog or wolf, until she saw the human—vaguely human—face. It was going to run past her, again going for the artifact. Tania struggled against the crushing force inside her head and dove right as the creature passed her. She knocked the thing from its gallop stance, for it weighed almost nothing, and pinned it against the wall, lashing her fist across its throat at the same time. A sharp black line appeared across the throat and fluid began to spill out.

Good enough,
she thought, and ran on, using the brightness and motion of the light behind her to make sure Vanessa was still with her.

Light ahead. The vaguest gray highlights on one side of the tunnel. A flashlight?

No, she realized. Sunlight, glinting off the rock. “Almost there!” she shouted. The woman behind her made no response, but Tania could hear the pace of her footfalls increase.

The entrance to the cave was a glowing white oval, so bright it blinded her for a moment. When her vision returned, Tania took in the expansive space that marked the cave’s entrance. She half-expected to see a crowd of subhumans standing there, waiting to ambush them. The room, however, was empty.

“Catch your breath,” Vanessa said. “We should be in the aura now.”

Tania hadn’t realized it until then, but the headache had dwindled back to something manageable. Still, she wanted nothing more at that moment than to get back to their aircraft and find a packet of ibuprofen. The first dose of many to come, she thought bitterly.

Pablo’s motionless face rose unbidden to her mind, dispelling the thought. Popping some pills was nothing compared to the sacrifice he’d made. Tania swallowed, accepting the pain as an eternal reminder that she still lived.

Vanessa stuffed the flare into a pile of dirt, killing its brilliant red light. Tania met her gaze and held it. She wanted to say something, anything, but no words came. The other woman broke eye contact first and glanced back down the tunnel through which they’d fled. Her lips moved in a silent goodbye, and one more tear rolled down a cheek that had seen too many already. She drew her arm across her face and let out a sharp breath. “He didn’t talk much.” Her voice was wistful. “Still, I felt like I knew him better than anyone.”

“I’m sorry,” Tania managed to say. The words sounded feeble, but the other woman nodded.

“Let’s go,” she said, “before the grief catches up with me.”

Tania glanced down at the bloody knife in her hand, tightened her grip on it, and started up the pile of debris that served as a ramp to the mouth of the cave. Her now-permanent headache began to flare again, forcing her to squint and hold up one hand to block the brightness of the daylight that spilled in.

Her headache grew.
It is the brightness, isn’t it?

Another explanation came to mind, along with a cold revelation. Tania began to tremble all over. “Something’s wrong,” she said, her voice a miserable, shaky mess.

Vanessa called up from behind. “What is it? Do you see something?”

At the mouth of the cave Tania froze, and heard Skyler’s voice in her head—the last words he’d said before leaving Ireland. “There’s a bunch of aura towers coming back.…”

To the south, Tania could see the last of the emerald towers vanish into the tree line, headed for Belém.

No. Half should have stayed. Like Ireland and Belém. Why change the rules now, you bastards?

She dropped to her knees, watching the source of the aura disappear. She would die here, or become something … less. There was no way to scrub the air inside the
Helios
.

The teeth that had wrapped around her skull bit down.

Chapter Twenty

Southern Chad

31.MAR.2285

A violent wind roused Russell Blackfield from his fitful sleep.

The walls of his little prison shook with the force of the gust, and despite the closed doors a fine spray of powdery sand whipped in and coated everything. The winds outside dwindled as he became coherent.

He had no idea how long he’d been out. A wave of exhaustion had come upon him back in the aircraft. Lack of food, probably. Or depression. Whatever, the sleep had helped. He felt almost himself again.

He tried to move, only to find his hands were cuffed together, the chain going up and over a metal bar above his head. Some sort of closet, he guessed. The bar was thin but looked pretty solid. Two bolts held it to the wall at either end.

While he estimated his depleted strength versus those bolts, an alarm within his helmet caught his attention. It had been there since he’d woke, he realized, but only then did it occur to him that it mattered.

The oxygen meter read 3 percent. As he digested this the closet shook.

Russell felt more than heard what sounded like an explosion, though it came from far off. The uncomfortable floor beneath him trembled. His eyes never wavered from the tiny display projected onto his helmet.

OXYGEN LEVEL CRITICAL

Still he waited. They’d probably just tossed a grenade to clear out some lingering subs and would be back any minute with one of those aura-generating towers in tow. He’d be able to open his mask, breathe air that didn’t carry
eau de flattus,
melt Skyler’s smug face with the thruster attached to his suit’s arm, then … then he could focus on that little nimble-bodied mouse, Ana. Make up some stories about how Skyler had been bullshitting her from the start, how he—Russell—was the real hero.

More time passed. He tried to slow his breathing, and it might have helped a bit, but the air level still dropped. Two percent now. He figured he had ten minutes.

He felt a drop of sweat trickle down his spine as the possibility that they wouldn’t come back at all started to feel more and more likely. How much time would he need to get to these aura towers, assuming they were even still around? Even if they were still here, they could be kilometers away. He might have already screwed himself by waiting this long.

The ground shook again. This time it felt different. No explosion, more like an earthquake. When it ended he heard a series of strange popping sounds at the edge of his perception, as if a hundred doors had slammed shut.

What could make such a sound he had no idea, but it couldn’t be good. Then what could only have been a shock wave of air rattled the entire shack around him.

It was time to fucking go.

Russell navigated away from the oxygen readout and found the menu again that would allow him to override the thruster’s “vacuum only” default. He had no idea how long he could run the thing for, or how much heat it would generate, but one of the things he’d spent the last hour mulling was his target. He figured he only had enough fuel for one shot at this, and so he’d spent considerable time weighing his options.

The thick chain they’d secured him with looked new. The bar they’d hung it on, however, did not. He’d seen Skyler test it with his own weight and a few tugs, but compared to the chain it looked thin and showed signs of rust through the sloppy coat of paint. He guessed it would be iron underneath.

The warning beep from his suit, which he’d hastily shut off earlier, came on again. This time the pitch, volume, and pace were all increased. One fucking percent.

“Right, then.” Russell aimed his wrist at the bar above his head and fired the thruster. He felt his arm pushed by the little motor and saw a tiny yellow glow light up the spot on the bar he’d chosen.

Then the smoke started. No wonder the bloody thing should only be used in a vacuum. Whatever the fuel was, it apparently reacted with atmosphere like a trash fire. A gray-black cloud enveloped him in seconds, making it impossible to see anything behind the glass of his face mask. Russell swore, tried to hold his arm still. He thought he’d kept it pretty steady, but after a short thirty seconds the hiss of the thruster dwindled and died with no satisfying snap of the bar.

He reached up and gave it a tug. Solid as the moment he’d started.

He stood at a crouch and pulled, straining until he thought his eyes would pop out of his skull. Nothing. He was breathing hard now, a luxury he didn’t have. The air in his suit started to taste thin. The warning beeps continued.

“Skyler!” he shouted, like a feeble idiot.

They weren’t coming back. He had to act. Better to risk going subby than to sit here and suffocate. He had to at least try to make the aura. And besides, even a subhuman Russell Blackfield could still have a chance at hunting down and killing Skyler Luiken, even if only as payback for leaving him chained up like this.

He saw no other option, and so he turned as best he could and threw his face into the wall.

Again. Again. Again. On the fifth try a tiny crack appeared before his eyes. Russell felt faint, couldn’t get a breath. He reared back and thrust his head forward with all the strength he could muster and …

The glass cracked. A long, jagged white line all the way across his field of view. He tried to laugh but no air came and his vision started to blur.
Fuck, too late,
he managed to think as he felt his body falter beneath him.

He fell, face-first, and that did the trick.

A chunk of his mask fell away and clattered inside his helmet. He drew a breath and almost gagged on the smoky air, which only made him involuntarily suck in more of it. A coughing fit followed and didn’t end until his eyes were watering and his lungs felt coated in chalk.

The smoke had finally dissipated when Russell got his breathing under control. His head pounded, and he supposed—hoped—that was from the lack of oxygen and not a SUBS infection. He knew that took a few minutes on average to kick in, and so Russell set to work on the bar. He moved the chain so that it was right against the wall where the bar had been bolted in place, and then he started to jump. He kicked his legs out and let his chained wrist break the fall.

On his seventh such jump, his wrist numb and raw, the bolts pried away from the wall. Just a millimeter, but it was better than nothing. Skull throbbing, Russell jumped four more times before the bar tore away from the wall and sent him tumbling to the floor.

He welcomed the pain. Pain meant he still lived. He rolled, pulling his still-chained arms free of the broken iron bar, stood, and ran from the room.

Outside he pulled the shattered helmet from his head. It left a curved line in the sand as it rolled away. Seeing clearly, breathing evenly again, he studied the chain between his hands. Russell glanced around and saw a small rusted signpost jutting from the ground near the building, maybe a meter tall. The sign itself had fallen off, but it didn’t matter. He lumbered over to it and put the chain over it, pulling it tight against one of the squared edges. Leaning back, one foot pushing against the old metal rod, Russell pulled his arms back, grunting with effort.