Contagious (50 page)

“Okay, how do we contain that? Where’s Dew?”
“Dew is infected,” Margaret said. “So is Perry; all of them are. There’s nothing we can do for them, Murray, and if we have any hope at containing this, we need to act right now.”
Dead silence on the other end.
“Murray, did you hear me?”
“Yeah,” he said quickly, but in a voice that oozed total exhaustion. “What do you want us to do?”
The mist shut off. Clarence opened the airlock door that led back to the entrance. Margaret swallowed “You have to . . .”
Her voice lodged in her throat as she followed Clarence. He shut the door, then ran to the final airlock.
“Margaret?” Murray said. “Talk to me.”
She felt tears pouring down her face, but because of the suit she couldn’t wipe them.
“Option Number Four,” she said. “You have to use Option Number Four.”
Dead silence. Otto pulled her onto the football field and started taking off her gloves.
When Murray spoke, his voice sounded thin, old. “There’s got to be another way.”
Clarence lifted her feet one at a time, took off her shoes.
Margaret shook her head. “There isn’t. The fireball will crank the temperature up so high it will kill all the spores for three or four miles around. They’ve probably spread a mile already. You have to do it. Now.”
Another pause. She disconnected the helmet from the suit but left it on her head so she could keep talking to Murray. She started tearing off her suit. Clarence did the same with his.
A new voice in the speakers.
“Margaret, this is President John Gutierrez. Do you realize that you’re asking us to drop a nuclear weapon on Detroit?”
“Of course I
fucking realize
that! I know
exactly
what I’m asking, you
fucking moron
!”
Margaret couldn’t stop the tears now, nor could she stop the sobs. She stepped out of the suit. She wore nothing but scrubs and the helmet. Otto grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the Osprey’s open rear ramp.
“How much time to evacuate?” Gutierrez asked.
“You can’t evacuate,” she said. “If you don’t do this right now, it’s going to be too late. Look how it converted Ogden’s men, how fast it took over and what it made them do. The spores have already spread all through downtown Detroit. Thousands are infected. The infected will radiate out of the city. These people are terrified. They’re going to get as far from Detroit as they can; you can’t stop them. Some of them will turn into these . . . gasbags . . . full of spores. We just watched it happen. The infection will spread everywhere. People will be converted into this collective organism—they won’t be human anymore. If it spreads past Detroit, we’re
fucked. Humanity
is fucked. You have to act now, Mister President, or it’s out of our hands for good.”
“Where are you?” Gutierrez asked.
“We’re getting on the Osprey at the football field.”
She ran up the ramp. It started to close behind her. Seven men were inside. They stared at her and Clarence, and instantly shied away, shuffling toward the front of the passenger section.
“Margaret,” Gutierrez said, his voice quiet and cold. “Are you sure,
absolutely
sure this is the only way?”
“I . . . I am.”
Another pause, then Murray again. “I’m telling the Osprey pilot to take off fast,” he said. “You should be out of range when it goes off. What are the exact target coordinates?”
Margaret stared out for a second. All of Dew’s men were gone. No one to paint the target. There was one way, though, to make sure the nuke hit the right spot.
“Can you get a signal from Dew’s satphone?”
“Yes.”
“Drop it there.”
PERRY MEETS CHELSEA
Perry’s body boiled inside. He and pain were old buddies, but his old buddy was making itself a little too welcome. His second infection, it seemed, would be just as much fun as the first.
He walked through the front door of the abandoned building. Two of Ogden’s men were inside. They’d recovered their weapons. The spores didn’t seem to affect them.
They let Perry pass.
Come to me, my protector.
He walked. The two men followed him, one behind each shoulder. Chelsea was on the second floor. He could sense her, feel her beauty, her power, her
divinity.
He walked up old stairs that creaked under his feet.
General Ogden said we’d have another hour or so before they shut down the city, so we have to hurry. We need a car. Then we can go for a ride.
He reached the top of the stairs.
Down the hall, standing in an empty, trash-strewn room of the abandoned building, he finally saw her.
Chelsea.
And his heart
ached.
“I’m afraid I destroyed the gate, Chelsea.”
You have destroyed many things.
“No gate . . . what will you do?”
We’re like a new person now. A superorganism. Isn’t that a neat word? Can’t you feel the crawlers working through your body? They will change you even more, Perry. We will escape Detroit, and then you and I will make the whole world play together.
He walked up to her. His feet seemed heavy, each step like dead-lifting a thousand pounds. Every nerve screamed with agony.
She could do it. She
could
take over the world.
Chelsea Jewell could be God.
You understand now, don’t you? You understand how silly it was to fight all this time? Let’s get a car and go get some ice cream.
Perry smiled down at her. So tiny, so fragile, so beautiful.
He snapped his right arm back into the soldier behind him. A pile-driver elbow smashed into the man’s face, crushing his left cheek and fracturing his right orbital bone. The man on Perry’s left started to raise his M4, but Perry pointed his .45 down and fired twice. Two bullets shredded the man’s foot into raw meat. The man shivered, dropped his gun and instinctively reached for his foot. As he bent down, Perry put the .45 to his head and pulled the trigger.
Perry swiveled right to face the man he’d elbowed. Two shots, both bullets ripping through the man’s chest. Before the body even hit the filthy wooden floor, Perry turned back and reached out.
His big right hand locked on Chelsea Jewell’s throat.
He lifted her. She weighed nothing.
Stop it!
“No.”
No, Perry, NO! Bad Perry!
She didn’t look scared. She didn’t look evil, either. She looked like a spoiled child, a child who did whatever she wanted,
took
whatever she wanted.
He squeezed a little harder.
Fear crept into those angelic blue eyes, the realization that maybe she didn’t control him.
You have to do what I say! I told you to kill that man, and you did!
“You didn’t make me do it,” Perry said. “I couldn’t let him wind up like me. I had to help him.”
Footsteps rushed up the stairs behind him. Perry turned to face the open door, Chelsea still held out in front of him. The last gunman sprinted down the hall, M4 raised. He skidded to a halt when he saw Chelsea held in the air like a shield.
Perry aimed and fired.
The bullet hit the last man dead center in the forehead. He took one step back, dropped his gun, then lifted his right hand, weakly, as if he wanted to touch Chelsea’s hair one last time.
The man fell backward.
He didn’t move.
Perry looked at Chelsea. So beautiful. He understood that man’s dying gesture of love, of affection.
Why would you kill me, Perry?
Hate tinged her ice-cold eyes.
Cold, like the eyes of a hatchling.
You’re not like anyone else. I can see into your memories, Perry. No one accepted you for who you are, but with me you can be what you were born to be—a killer.
“Maybe that’s what I was born to be,” Perry said. “But it’s not who I am anymore.”
It is, and you know it is. Why help them? What have these people ever done for you?
“One of them was going to take me fishing,” Perry said.
Then he shot Chelsea Jewell in the face.
DEW’S SATPHONE
A soldier handed Margaret a satphone. She just looked at it. Clarence took it and answered.
“Agent Otto here.”
The voice on the satphone was crackling but clearly audible. “It’s Murray. I’ve got Perry. He wants to talk with Margaret.”
Margaret’s body sagged in her seat. Perry was still alive? Not for long, not long at all.
“Okay,” she said, and took the phone.
More crackling, then the deep voice of Perry Dawsey. “Hey Margo.”
She fought back the tears. If she cried too hard she couldn’t speak. “Hey,” she said. “Are you . . . are you on Dew’s phone?”
“Yeah,” Perry said. “I got Chelsea. The voices have finally stopped, but . . . I don’t think I’m doing so good. I’ve got those things inside me. It hurts. Bad. I think they’re moving to my brain. Margaret, I don’t want to lose control again.
“You won’t,” she said. “They won’t have time.”
A pause. “Holy shit,” he said. “Are you nuking me?”
“Yes.”
Laughter, cut short by a wet cough, then a groan of pain. “Dew said I’m like a cockroach, that nothing can kill me. I don’t think physics is on my side this time, though.”
Margaret let out a sound that was half cry, half laugh. Her soul
hurt.
“Clarence with you?”
“I can hear you,” Clarence said, his voice also choked with sobs. “You are really something else. Nobody ever been as tough as you.”
“Sorry about those Toby jokes,” Perry said. “Truth be told, I was just jealous of you and Margo. I wanted to beat the shit out of something, and you were there.”
“I know,” Clarence said. “It’s nothing.”
“Don’t fuck it up with her,” Perry said. “I hope you know what you’ve got.”
“I do,” Clarence said. “Trust me, I do.”
“Cool,” Perry said. “Uh . . . how long do I have?”
Murray’s voice. “About fifteen seconds.”
“No shit?” Perry said. “That’s kind of fucked up.”
A pause. More coughing.
“Margo?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for saving my life.”
B61 MAKES BINGO
The order came through.
Captain Paul Ward asked them to repeat it.
They did.
Paul said nothing.
His weapons officer, Lieutenant Colonel Maegan “Mae” Breakall, sat right behind him. She was one the few female crew members of an F-15E, and she’d achieved that position by being a team player and never questioning an order.
While Paul sat speechless, Mae also asked them to repeat it.
They did so, this time with a bit more force.
Captain Paul Ward then did something he hadn’t done in his entire military career—he refused to obey.
No sir.
No sir, I will not drop a ten-kiloton B61 nuclear warhead on the Motor City.
Fifteen seconds later, air force general Luis Monroe came on the line. As if that weren’t enough, President John Gutierrez joined in as well. One hell of a conference call.
Monroe explained, quite calmly, considering the situation, that if Paul and Mae disobeyed a direct order, it was an act of treason. Gutierrez added some motivation of his own—if Captain Paul Ward did not drop the bomb, like right fucking
now,
he would be directly responsible for a disease spreading across the United States of America, a disease that could potentially destroy the country, its people, and if they were really unlucky, the entire human race.
Paul and Mae had no idea how much of this was true, but then again, it wasn’t their job to question orders. Their job was to
follow
orders, from any commanding officer—and when those orders came first-person from the air force’s top man
and
the commander in chief, it was impossible to disobey.
Paul pulled back on the yoke, bringing the F-15E to fifteen thousand feet. As he did, the rest of his squadron kicked in the afterburners and headed out. The radio filled with chatter: the Ospreys, Black Hawks, A-10s, F-15s and every other aircraft turned away from downtown Detroit and flew at maximum speed.
Paul and Mae were alone.
About to drop a nuke on America.
Mae fought back tears as she entered information into the computer.
A B61 Model 4 tactical nuclear warhead is a kiloton-range weapon with a “dial-a-yield” feature. Dial-a-yield allows aircraft crews to change the B61’s output while in midflight. As ordered, Mae set in a yield of ten kilotons. She set the detonation point at one thousand feet, armed the weapon, then told Paul that it was ready to fire.
He flipped open the covering plate on the nuke trigger. He thought of his three sons back at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, wondered how many sons like them were down there in Detroit, how many daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces and cousins. And dogs. How many dogs were down there?
His finger gripped the trigger. His hand felt weak. He hoped that maybe, just maybe, he’d have an unexpected stroke and lose the ability to squeeze it.
Mae said, “Do it, Paul.”
He squeezed.
He didn’t have a stroke.
The trigger clicked home.
The twelve-foot-long B61 rocket fired, launching away from the F-15E at 750 miles per hour. As the bomb streaked toward the target, Paul went full throttle and shot away from Detroit at supersonic speed.
The seven-hundred-pound B61 dropped toward the city. The guidance computer tracked a signal emitting from near the corner of Franklin and Riopelle. The B61 wouldn’t actually hit the ground, but if it had, it would have landed only twenty feet away from the satphone in Perry Dawsey’s hand.
At twelve hundred feet, a gas generator fired, ejecting a twenty-four-foot nylon/Kevlar-29 ribbon parachute. In just three seconds, the B61 slowed from 750 miles an hour to 35.
It drifted down until it hit eleven hundred feet, where barometric pressure activated a firing mechanism that began a nuclear chain reaction.
Detonation.
In a millionth of a second, a fireball formed and heated the air to 18,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly twice as hot as the surface of the sun. This heat radiated outward at the speed of light, expanding and dissipating.
Dissipating
being a relative term, however, as the heat caused instant first-degree burns as far as two miles away. The closer to the detonation, the worse the burns. Inside a quarter mile of the blast, flesh simply vaporized.
Every spore within a mile of the detonation point died instantly. Those between one and two miles out lived for as long as two seconds before they burned up in infinitesimally small puffs of smoke. The five-mile-per-hour wind had carried some lucky spores as far as two and a half miles away—those took almost five seconds to cook, but they cooked just the same.
The plasma ball was really the whole point of the nuke, to create instant, scorching temperatures that would kill every spore, and it worked like a charm.