Herculanium (39 page)

“In you go, mate,” said Jayna casually, walking around the car and opening the passenger door. “You heard me; in you go.”

“What?” Preston couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“We’re going to use the car as a shield. We’re much safer inside than we are out here.”

“I’m not going in there.”

“This is not the time to get squeamish on me, Preston. We’re sitting ducks. You heard what I said, now off you go.”

“Look around you,” he said, raising his hands and gesturing around them. “Take a good look. It’s over. We’ve hit the end. We can’t go any further.”

“Our current scenario is unacceptable. We need to look for more options.”

“There is only one option here, and that’s giving up. Let’s ask them what they want. Maybe we can negotiate a truce. If this really is life and death, then I want to live. No, I
choose
to live.”

Jayna took a step back and slowly pointed her gun at Preston. “The life that you seek is in there,” she said, nodding to the car, “or out there, over the bridge and in the darkness. In their hands, there is no life, just death. You are a man carrying the next plague that can wipe out the entire planet. What value do you think they’ve placed on you?”

Preston stepped forward and placed his face directly in front of the gun. “You’ll have to shoot me, then. That should be no problem for you. I’ve seen you smile one moment, then kill the next. I’m tired of running, I’m tired of not being in control. And I’m not like you; I’m not a murderer. I just want peace.”

“This is about choices, Preston. I’m fighting for your right to choose. You have a life to live, and you belong out there. You deserve much more than what this world has given you. But if that’s your decision, and you want to damn yourself to hell and drag me along with you, then I guess I’ll have to honor that.” She lowered her gun and gave a hesitant smile. “You know I won’t give up on you. Have it your way.”

“Good,” he said. “Now let’s ask them what they want.”

“I do this under protest, you arrogant bastard,” she added.

Preston turned around and slowly panned his gaze from the police barricade before them, to the helicopters orbiting above, and then over his shoulder to the other army waiting just across the chasm. There was an almost comical slant to their situation, a visual overkill of two hapless people surrounded from all sides, where everything that could’ve gone wrong already had. But despite the seeming hopelessness of their scenario, it was frightening that it had yet to resolve itself to a conclusion.

He slowly raised his hands to surrender.

“So what happens now?” he yelled, unsure of what to do next.

“You tell me, mate,” said Jayna. “This was your idea, remember?”

Despite the flickering lights and the commotion around and above them, there was a macabre silence in the atmosphere, an uneasy feeling of waiting and anticipation. When a seeming eternity had lapsed, the flashing police lights suddenly stood still, glowing in place like a beaded necklace of lit ruby. The two gunships halted their orbit and hovered in place, opposite each other and positioned for a precision surgical strike on the freeway surface. Time, space and bowels suddenly froze in place.

“By decree of the government of the United States of the Americas,” recited a mechanical voice, “you are hereby ordered to stand down and submit yourself to summary arrest. Lower your weapons or we will open fire.”

“Give me your gun and phone,” commanded Preston.

“You’re insane, man,” said Jayna. “This is the only chance we have of staying alive.”

“They’re going to shoot us if they see you armed. Now stop goddamn arguing with me and give me your fucking gun and phone. I’m not playing; I’ll strip them off your body if I have to, God help me.”

“Fine,” she said with a grunt, slamming the two objects into Preston’s waiting hands. “You’ve just doomed us all, you fool.”

Preston slowly bent down and slid both items across the cement away from them. He then backed away, raising his hands high in the air. Despite another brief eternity of silence, the military stood its ground… and did nothing.

“We give up,” he yelled again. “Tell us what you want us to do and we’ll do it. We’ll do anything you ask.”

He turned to Jayna and grimaced. “We’ve already done what they wanted. What are they waiting for? How do we communicate with them?”

Jayna rolled her eyes and shrugged her hands high in frustration. “Why don’t you dance like a chicken and see if that does anything?”

“Hey, fuck you. I’m trying to save us here.”

“And I can only warn you about these people so many times. You’re unfortunately going to learn the hard way how Combattra takes care of its business.”

The wait was twisting Preston’s gut in knots, and he couldn’t help but start doubting his impulsive decision of capitulation. He followed their command to the letter; what else could he have done differently to insure their safety?

“You know you’re welcome to leave anytime you want,” he told Jayna. “You’re one of them. I’ll understand if you want to go back.”

“The hell I will,” she whispered.

Preston nearly leapt into the air when Jayna’s phone suddenly began ringing. Jayna immediately cut in front of him and retrieved the phone from the pavement. “I’ll get this, sport. I think it’s for me.”

She cupped one ear shut and listened intently with the other. “This is Corporal Jayna Rogers, serial number Alpha 2914 Beta Beta Gamma. I wish to discuss the terms of our surrender.”

Preston stared at her face while she was talking. Below her military exterior was just an ordinary person doing what she was assigned to do, as best as she could. Without having to listen to her conversation, he could tell how much pain, doubt and conflict she was feeling in protecting him. The pressure of her responsibility weighed heavily on her furrowed brow, on the subtle tremble in her lips. Would he be as generous, he wondered, if the positions were reversed?

“Unconditional surrender, my ass,” she said into the mouth piece. “You have two living contagions on a bridge overlooking thousands of cars. A single droplet of our body fluid can usher in a new age of extinction, all because you wouldn’t listen to our demands. We can just jump off this fucking ledge and splatter on someone’s windshield, who in turn will just hit somebody else. Or maybe we can spit on the birds up here, and they’ll just take the virus to where you couldn’t reach them?”

Preston laughed to himself. She sure knew how to exaggerate.

“Put my commanding officer on the line at once, you substandard fetus of a man. His name is Captain Scott Barrows. I demand to speak to him immediately. Hello?”

She lowered the phone in frustration, shaking her head while taking short, deep breaths. Subtlety and tack were never among her stronger suits. At least in combat, she knew exactly where the enemy was and its intent. Playing cat-and-mouse games were pointless and dangerous to the disadvantaged.

“Hello? Captain Barrows? Is that you, sir? This is Corporal Rogers. I’m afraid we’re in a bit of a fix, sir. I would like to discuss the terms of our peaceful surrender, but the help has been less than stellar. Could you please mediate on our behalf?”

“You couldn’t possible imagine the disappointment I am feeling right now, Corporal Rogers,” said a disembodied voice from the other line. “Mere words could not do it justice. You were one of our finest, yet you chose to side with the enemy.”

A mind-numbing chill suddenly cascaded down her spine. “General Cube, sir? I can explain; this has been a horrific misunderstanding. My ward is innocent of all these accusations. If you would only listen, we can prove the charges are false. There is no plague.”

“It’s a little late for that, soldier. I suggest you at least show the world some dignity in surrendering when wearing our uniform. At the behest of your commanding officer, we are dispatching an Arrest Administrator to process your detainment. Please try not to kill this one; this is his first assignment.”

“But sir, if you would only hear us out. Please try to see our predic…”

“Put the traitor on the phone. Someone here would like to speak to him.”

She turned to Preston and handed him the phone. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

He stared at Jayna as he took the call. “Hello?”

“I personally promised you another fifteen minutes of fame, Mr. Jones, and I made good on my promise.” Judge Silas Thorne was beaming through the phone, laughing softly with sadistic confidence. “This time, however, it is on our terms.”

Preston stood speechless, unsure of how to respond. It was only then did he realize that Jayna may have been right all along; that this entire ordeal may have been to settle a petty, personal grudge.

“At a loss for words? That’s so unlike you, Mr. Jones,” continued Thorne. “You’ve been more than vocal about our world and its curiosities. Now this same world is going to teach you a lesson. From one former referee to an arrogant waste of a basketball player, you’ve been ejected.”

A simple taunt was all he needed. “You want to know one more thing I hate about this world, Judge Thorne?”

“What is that, Mr. Jones? Why don’t you enlighten me for one last time?”

Preston casually tossed the phone over his shoulder and into the Deck 5 open chasm, sending the unit crashing in the middle of early evening Bay Area traffic below.

“What is he saying, Judge Thorne?” asked General Cube, unable to see from his vantage point in the helicopter.

“Hush, Mason,” he said, listening intently. “I think he’s…crying.”

The phone unit bounced off a few roofs and windshields, before ricocheting to the pavement and getting crushed by traffic.

“Who wanted to talk to you? General Cube?” asked Jayna.

Preston shook his head. “Nope. It was a wrong number.”

“You know you just threw away our only means of communicating with these people, don’t you?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, what can you do, right? Where we are right now, a lot of things really don’t matter anymore.”

“General Cube said that they’re going to send an Arrest Administrator to process our surrender. Perhaps we can negotiate our terms with him.”

“Like you said, like you’ve
always
said, I’m not getting my hopes up.”

Three silhouettes slowly emerged from the glowing barricade before them, prompting Jayna to take her place in front of Preston. She instinctively reached for her gun, only to realize it was out of reach in front of her on the distant pavement. Almost moving in slow motion, a uniformed soldier flanked by two armed guards in contamination suits came forward and paused. Jayna stared at the three unblinkingly as if she was a cornered animal, ready to pounce and do anything to survive. Preston could feel his heartbeat pounding outside his chest.

“My name is Special Agent Rivers,” said the officer, extending a cupped hand with a military badge. “We’d like to resolve this matter as quickly and as peacefully as we can. What exactly are your terms?”

“I don’t feel comfortable negotiating with a gun pointed at my head,” said Jayna. “We’re unarmed here. I don’t think you’ll be needing your two chaperones.”

With a subtle nod, the agent motioned for the two guards to return to the barricade. He pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows, signaling that he felt secured enough to continue without armed escort.

“We willfully submit ourselves to arrest,” recited Jayna, “but we would like to do so under our own power. My client and I respectfully request a personal transport to return with you to the nearest processing station. I would also request that legal counsel ride along with us, under armed perimeter guard, of course.”

“It’s highly irregular to have known contagions dictate the method of transportation toward their own incarceration, Corporal Rogers,” said Agent Rivers. “That includes traitors, as well.”

“And what about attempted abduction and murder? How does that figure in your rulebook?”

“It’s called ‘national security,’ something you obviously could care less about.”

“You’ve heard our demands,” interrupted Preston, irritated with the smug military suit. “What’s it gonna to be?”

“Let me think it over and we’ll get back to you.”

“I didn’t know ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers were so hard an option for negotiators,” said Jayna back with a smirk. “Are you sure you’re not in over your head?”

“It seems Preston Jones is the least of our worries. Combattra is also fighting one of its own.” The officer adjusted his hat and straightened his posture. “Your demands are unreasonable. You will accept our terms of unconditional surrender.”

“Attempting to disgrace and murder a man without due process is unreasonable. Our request for a car is not.” Jayna could sense a ruse in the making; this officer wasn’t negotiating, but was stalling for time.

“Is that a request or a command, Corporal?”

Preston laughed out loud. “You mean you can’t tell?”

The officer’s coded body language was subtle, virtually invisible to the untrained eye. From the blinking of his eyes, to the casual turning of his head, to the sway of his arms and the gate of his steps, he had been signaling someone since he engaged the two in conversation. Jayna would’ve missed it all entirely had the man not made one casual move too many. She also knew that he would be the trigger-man to initiate their plan. But what was the signal?

“Combattra, if anything, is reasonable,” concluded Agent Rivers, “even to its own renegades. Let me discuss this with my superiors. I will be back shortly.” He nodded to Preston, but then turned his full attention and stance to Jayna. “I realize this is a trying situation for all of us, but that is no excuse for being remiss of protocol. I am a captain in the service, Corporal Rogers, as you can see in these bars. As long as you wear that uniform, you will give its members their due respect. I can only forgive such a transgression once. Now, step forward and salute me, soldier.”

With years of military training and conditioning imbued in her very being, Jayna instinctively took a short step forward and snapped her hand above her brow in a robotic salute. The officer returned her salute, raising his hand, and then swiping it down. Jayna lowered her own hand, but stopped it in mid-motion.