On Her Majesty's Behalf (5 page)

Graves interrupted his thoughts. “Fascinating creatures, Burke. Truly fascinating.”

Burke answered with a noncommittal grunt.
Fascinating
was not a word he'd ever use in conjunction with either shredders or shamblers, but then it wasn't his job to figure out what made them tick; all he had to do was kill them as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

“Just look at the way it reacts to our presence! It is aware of us on a level way above that of the average shambler. I wouldn't be surprised if it could even think independently to some extent.”

Burke found the whole idea very frightening.
Self-­aware zombies? No thanks.
The evidence for Graves being right was piling up, however. Knowing it was better to let him have all the facts at hand, Burke told him about the way the two shredders had split up while charging him on the pier, using the lamppost as cover for their two-­pronged attack.

Graves was nodding before Burke was done. “Yes, yes, I read that in your report. Given the information I've collected to date, I'm beginning to believe that they can think
and
reason to a limited degree.”

It wasn't a conclusion Burke was happy to hear. “What else can you tell me?” he asked.

“The physical exam uncovered a number of important facts. For one, they have excellent hearing. Equal to that of a dog, at the very least. Certainly much better than our own. On the other hand, their eyesight is rather poor, no doubt a result of these cataract-­like changes in their irises. Dim light is probably very difficult for them. I suspect they react to movement and sound more than anything else.”

Burke thought about that for a moment or two, not sure if the information would actually be useful in the field. A shredder's poor eyesight wouldn't be all that helpful to his squad if it could hear them coming from over a hundred yards away, though it was worth filing away for later reference if necessary.

“As you noted yourself, they are extremely quick and exceptionally strong,” Graves continued. “Examinations of this specimen, along with the autopsies I performed on the bodies of two other recovered shredders, showed extensive growth of certain types of muscle tissue, particularly around the joints. That and a greatly increased metabolism appear to be acting together to allow them to operate at physical capabilities that you and I simply cannot match.”

Great,
Burke thought.
As if fighting shamblers wasn't hard enough. If these things spread to the Continent, we are going to be in serious trouble!

In his mind's eye Burke could see them swarming a trench line en masse, like a colony of ants all working together toward the same goal, and knew instinctively that there was no way they would be able to withstand a charge like that. The very idea of it sent shivers up his spine.

To get his mind off the image, he focused on another question that had been bugging him since the encounter on the pier.

“What's driving these things? Why the hunger for human flesh?”

Graves frowned. “Initial tests seem to indicate that there is something in living tissue, particularly human tissue, that the shredder needs to maintain its current state of animation, but I've only begun my research so I can't say for certain. I do know this, though—­deprive a shredder of living flesh for too long and it will begin to decay, just like any other corpse.”

The comment caught Burke by surprise. “So are these things dead or alive?” He'd always thought of them as nothing more than reanimated corpses, but if they could think and reason . . .

“I guess it depends upon your definition of alive.”

Burke laughed uneasily. “You lost me, Graves.”

The other man moved to stand at the head of the table, directly behind the shredder's head. He reached over to a small tool stand next to him and picked up two metal rods. Each one was about half an inch in diameter and roughly six inches long.

“Think of it this way, Major. Life is nothing more than a combination of physical states. Our hearts beat to pump blood through our bodies. Our lungs inflate to push oxygen into our blood. We eat, we think, we breathe, and as a result we call ourselves alive.”

Burke could see Graves fiddling with something behind the shredder's head, but from where he stood he couldn't see what the other man was doing. Something about the activity bothered him, though he couldn't have consciously answered what. He stepped forward, intent on getting a better look.

Graves, meanwhile, continued his explanation.

“Stop our hearts from beating and we die. Stop our lungs from breathing and we die. Interrupt the electrochemical processes of our brains and we die. Or so I've always thought.”

He gestured at the shredder on the table before him. “Since we haven't had any reports of the London dead clawing their way out of their graves, we know this young man was alive when the bombs fell and the gas was released. He is clearly aware of us and is driven by an all-­consuming hunger, and yet his heart does not beat, his blood does not flow, and his lungs do not breathe. By our definitions, he is dead. And yet . . .”

Burke's motion around the table finally allowed him to see what Graves was doing. As Burke looked on, Graves carefully inserted the rods into two holes that had previously been drilled into the shredder's head. Burke winced at the sight but the shredder didn't react at all. It was as if he couldn't even feel it.

Once the rods were in place, Graves clipped a tin wire to the end of each one. Burke could see that the other ends of the wires were connected to the bottom of a light socket that was clamped to a nearby table. A small incandescent bulb rested in the socket.

For a moment nothing happened, then . . . the lightbulb sparked and slowly grew brighter.

“ . . . And yet there is more electrical activity going on in this shredder's brain right now than in yours and mine combined.” Graves turned to face Burke squarely. “So you tell me, Major—­is this shredder dead or alive?”

 

Chapter Seven

B
URKE WAS HALFWAY
through his breakfast the next morning when a runner arrived with word that his presence was requested for a staff meeting at MID's headquarters at 0900 hours. A glance at his watch told him that he had less than ten minutes to spare, so he shoveled another forkful of syntheggs into his mouth and then headed outside. A staff car was waiting to take some fellow officers in the same general direction, so Burke caught a lift and arrived at MID headquarters with a minute to spare.

He'd spent a fitful night, tossing and turning as his mind wouldn't let go of the disturbing information Graves had presented in the laboratory earlier that evening, and he had awakened in a grumpy mood. The question of whether the shredders were living or dead was a profound one, with considerable implications for the war effort in the months ahead. Since the attack it had been the generally accepted theory that the gas had first killed, then resurrected its victims into the ghoulish zombielike creatures commonly known as shredders.

But what if they were wrong?
Burke wondered.
What if the victims of the gas never died at all? What if they were still in there somewhere, their personalities subsumed by the transformation?

Burke shook his head, trying to clear it of all the extraneous thoughts. He wasn't smart enough to figure out the answers to such questions; he knew his own limitations. It would be up to guys like Graves to figure out the deeper questions, and hopefully they would come up with some answers.

For now, he had a briefing to attend.

Burke nodded at the guards out front and then entered the old farmhouse that the MID had claimed as its own. The first floor had been converted into the signals center, the communications officers stationed there working diligently to decode half a dozen enemy intercepts at any given time. Familiar with it all, Burke ignored them, slipping past the group to reach the stairwell leading to the upper floor.

Once at the top he moved briskly down the hall to the last room on the right. There he found U.S. and British officers and their aides milling about in a frenzied hive of activity. Burke spotted the new U.S. division commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ellington, talking with his opposite number on the British side, Brigadier Montgomery Calhoun, as well as several of the senior brigade commanders in charge of various sections of the front line. He nodded hello to several men he knew but avoided getting pulled into a conversation with anyone. After a moment or two, he saw his commanding officer, Colonel Nichols, waving to him from across the room. Burke cut through the crowd and headed in that direction.

As he approached, he saw that the sergeant he'd rescued the night before was there as well, dressed in a clean uniform but looking as uncomfortable as Burke felt among all the upper brass. Burke was surprised to see him up and on his feet, but apparently Bankowski's assessment had been correct. Exhaustion and dehydration—­nothing a good night's rest and some fluids couldn't fix. The dark tartan of the man's kilt identified him as a member of a Scottish unit, though his unit recognition badge, a lion rampant over the field of white and blue worn proudly on one shoulder, was unfamiliar to Burke. The sergeant gave him a short nod when he stepped up, one professional to another.

The colonel turned at his approach. “Thank you for coming, Major,” Nichols said with a smile. It didn't matter that Burke's presence was the result of an order, and therefore mandatory. Nichols treated him with courtesy; it was one of the many things Burke liked about the man.

Nichols turned to the British sergeant standing next to him and introduced the two men to each other.

“Mike, this is Sergeant Drummond of the Black Watch, Royal Highland Regiment. Sergeant Drummond, Major Michael Burke, formerly of the 316th Infantry Regiment and now part of my staff here in the Military Intelligence Division.”

Drummond extended a hand. “I don't think I've ever been more pleased to see a Yank than when I saw your face yesterday,” he said. “You have my thanks, sir.”

Burke grasped the man's hand in his own, noting the other's considerable strength in the process, and then shrugged off the praise. “No thanks necessary,” he said to Drummond. “I'm sure you would have done the same. Just before you passed out you mentioned you had a message from the King. What was that about, if I might ask?”

If Drummond intended to answer, he didn't get the chance, for at that moment Lieutenant Colonel Ellington stepped up to the head of the table and said, “If you would all find a seat, we'll get this meeting under way.”

There were a few minutes of delay as the senior officers in the room settled around the table, their aides in chairs lining the walls of the room behind them. Burke was about to join the latter when Nichols caught his eye and pointed to a seat at the table on his left. Knowing there was no sense in arguing, Burke did as he was told, noting with amusement that Sergeant Drummond was grudgingly settling into the chair on Nichols's right, looking even less happy about it than Burke was. A glance around the room showed him another familiar face; Professor Graves was seated near the rear of the group.

Ellington waited until they were all settled and then got to business.

“As you all know, twelve days ago the Germans launched a devastating attack on the cities of London and New York. Using two armored airships designed to fly higher and faster than we believed possible, they evaded our air patrols and rained devastation down upon our countrymen in the form of a gas designed to turn the living into the walking dead.”

The horror of the event, now nearly two weeks in the past, still had the power to bring the room to silence. You could have heard a pin drop as Ellington went on.

“What most of you don't realize is that Paris would have suffered the same fate if it hadn't been for the effort of a small team from our Military Intelligence Division who successfully penetrated enemy lines and, at a secret base outside of Verdun, were able to destroy both the airship and the gas supply it was due to carry.”

A cheer went up at the announcement, causing Burke to shake his head in disgust and look away. Yes, he and his men had managed to destroy the
Megaera,
the Paris-­bound airship, during their mission to rescue his half brother Jack, and yes, he was proud of that fact. But that pride was not enough to overcome the dismay he'd felt when he learned that just as her namesake had two sisters, so, too, did the airship he'd destroyed. The
Alecto
and the
Tisiphone
had launched from other facilities, miles away from where Burke had been at the time, and had carried out their missions with resounding success. Millions died, or worse, were turned into flesh-­hungry zombies, because he couldn't see far enough ahead to realize that a ship named after the Three Furies of Greek mythology simply
had
to have two sister vessels.

No, he didn't deserve cheers for that at all.

Ellington went on.

“The strike on London decimated the city and severed contact with the palace. Our scientists tell us that the gas dropped on the city is similar to the corpse gas the enemy is using on the battlefield, but rather than raising the dead it is infecting the living, turning them into zombies. An evacuation effort was started almost immediately and has saved thousands of lives to date, but that's small potatoes compared to the population of London and the surrounding area.”

He turned to an oversized map of London hanging on the wall behind him. “Units of the U.S. Engineer Corps and the Royal Corps of Engineers have managed to erect a makeshift barrier that completely surrounds the city of London—­from West Thurrock in the east, north to Waltham Cross, west to Staines and south to Redhill and Seven Oaks—­in an effort to keep the shredders, as the troops are now calling them, from turning the rest of the British populace into more of these undead creatures. As of this morning, the perimeter was secure and the threat contained.”

Burke frowned. He wasn't an expert on the geography of greater London, Lord knew, but he was pretty damn certain that Southend-­on-­Sea, the resort community from which he'd plucked Sergeant Drummond less than twenty-­four hours ago, was outside the line Calhoun had just described.
The perimeter was secured? Says who?

He glanced at Nichols, looking for permission to interrupt, but the other man shook his head slightly.
Not now,
he seemed to be saying.

Fine.

Burke gritted his teeth and kept his mouth shut.

Ellington was still talking. “ . . . For now. New information that reached us just last night has fundamentally changed our position on the issue. For that I'll turn you all over to Brigadier Calhoun.”

Ellington sat down, yielding the floor to his counterpart on the British side, Montgomery Calhoun. The brigadier was a tall, thin man who was practically vibrating with excitement and urgency. His pencil mustache bobbed up and down as he spoke in short, clipped sentences.

“As of three days ago, the King and Queen were alive and well inside Buckingham Palace.”

A roar of excitement erupted spontaneously from the British officers in the room and even Burke couldn't help but smile at the news. The Windsors were well loved and the news that they had survived the bombardment would raise the morale of the troops all along the front.

Calhoun held up his hands for silence, but it still took a ­couple of minutes for order to be returned so he could continue.

“We intend to mount an immediate operation into the heart of the city to rescue the King and Queen. We're pulling three companies, two infantry and one mechanized, off the front and transporting them across the Channel to Dover.”

He turned and pointed out the city's location on the southeastern coast of England. “From Dover we will travel overland to London, secure the royal family, and return with them first to Dover and then across the Channel once more to Le Havre.”

A low buzz of excitement began to fill the room as the assembled officers and aides began to talk among themselves, discussing the pros and cons of the brigadier's plan. Pulling that many men off the front lines was going to leave some holes and it would be up to the commanders of the adjacent areas to plug them as best they could. Figuring out how to do that now, before the shortage was upon them, had clearly caught their attention.

Burke, on the other hand, was far from excited. In fact, he was surprised and angry at the news. Calhoun was talking as if they were just going to waltz into London and spring the royal family. After what Burke had gone through the day before, he knew things wouldn't be anywhere near that easy. If Calhoun thought the shredders had been contained, he was sorely mistaken.

The conversation went on around him, the brigadier doling out orders to various unit commanders around the table and they, in turn, discussed them with their staffs, as Burke sat there fuming.

Finally, he couldn't restrain himself any longer. As the chatter continued he rose to his feet.

“Excuse me,” he said, trying, without success, to be heard above the crowd.

Colonel Nichols reached out and tugged on Burke's mechanical arm, but the newly minted major shook him off.

“Have you all gone nuts?” Burke asked, in a voice loud and sharp enough to cut through all the chatter.

The room fell abruptly silent in the wake of his remark, as all eyes turned toward Burke.

Brigadier Calhoun's head snapped around to face him.

“What did you say?” he asked.

Burke knew he was treading on thin ice but simply didn't care. The things he'd seen and done in the last few weeks had taken him way out on the edge, and he was finding it hard to come back again, to care about social niceties in light of the horror they were facing. They might throw him in the stockade for speaking up—­hell, probably would—­but there was no way he was just going to sit here while these idiots spouted such lunacy. Somebody had to derail this thing before it got completely out of control.

Burke went on as if he hadn't heard the brigadier's question. “Tanks?” he asked. “You want to take tanks into London with you? Against shredders?”

Calhoun's face was growing redder by the moment. He looked over to where Ellington was sitting. “Who is this man,” he asked, pointing a finger at Burke, “and what the
fuck
is he doing in my meeting?”

Both Ellington and Burke answered at the same time, their voices drowning each other out until the sharp, clear voice of Colonel Nichols cut through the clamor.

“He's one of my ­people, Brigadier General,” he said calmly. “Major Michael Burke. You might recognize him as the commander of the unit that destroyed that airship Lieutenant Colonel Ellington mentioned earlier, the one targeted at Paris?”

The others in the room were looking at Burke a bit differently now, but he barely noticed. His attention was squarely on the idiot at the front of the room.