Survivors (31 page)

“You don’t owe me anything,” said Rebecca. Her eyes never left the mess of gear on the tray before her. “Look, excuse me. I have to get these down to BL4.”

The young woman pushed the trolley ahead of her, leaving Stiles alone in the hall, a disappointed look on his face.

“Okay,” managed Stiles, as Rebecca disappeared around a corner. He raised his voice. “Hey—this conversation isn’t over!”

Down the hall, Rebecca cast a glance over her shoulder, half-expecting to see Stiles watching her go, but the soldier had already turned around, hands in his pockets, trudging away toward the front of the building.

Rebecca sighed, then shook her head. She had a delivery to make.

The journey down to BL4 wasn’t very long, but it felt that way to her. Her gaze ran over the white walls, as it did every time she made the trip, and she was simultaneously comforted and intimidated by the blank slate the walls represented. The only sounds in the hallway were her muffled footsteps, the squeaking of the cart, and her breathing.

Her mouth felt dry, and she realized she’d been panting again. BL4 worried her. It wasn’t enough that there were millions of corpses topside, was it? No, they had to have the bug in here, with them.

She passed through the security point and stepped into the prep room, pushing the cart ahead of her. Down here, away from the eyes of others, sometimes she liked to just shout and get it out of her system.

Rebecca wasn’t the only occupant of the room, however. Across the small space, resting on a bench, sat Dr. Anna Demilio, tugging off stubborn woolen socks as she prepared to enter BL4. Her figure struck Rebecca as odd for a moment, and then she placed the irregularity—Dr. Demilio was humming to herself, a wisp of a smile on her lips.

“You’ve heard about Stiles?” Rebecca asked.

Anna nodded and smiled.

“He’s been bitten twice and hasn’t turned.”

Anna’s smile widened. “Frank filled me in after we patched up Harris. Do you have any idea how important this is?” Anna’s voice was becoming animated. “It’s a quantum leap forward. I was expecting years of work. With a little luck, I can have it down to months, or even weeks! We can
stop
this thing!”

Rebecca agreed wholeheartedly. “What do we do?” she asked.

“Well, I’ll need to get a mess of Morningstar samples set up for us to use in the tests, first. Don’t worry about that—I can handle it. You can take care of the other samples I’ll need.”

“Just tell me what you need me to do.”

Anna considered it a moment, then shrugged. “You know how to use a needle, right?”

Rebecca smirked. “You know I do, Doc.”

“Then go get me some blood samples from Stiles. But be careful,” warned Anna. “Even if he’s immune, he could still be contagious.”

“I just ran into him upstairs.”

“Then you should know where to find him,” said Anna. She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go on, now. This is important. The faster we get this done, the faster we can move forward.”

“Okay! Okay! I’m doing it! Where do you want the cart?” Rebecca asked, as an afterthought.

“Oh, just leave it here. I’ll bring it into the lab when I’m ready.” Dr. Demilio had slipped into a Chemturion suit and was busily duct-taping the seals around her wrists and ankles.

“If you need me,” said Rebecca, retreating toward the exit, “I’ll be stabbing Stiles.”

“Be gentle.”

Rebecca wheeled a tray into the BL1 laboratory, now home to two patients. Gregory Mason still had his head buried in his paperback, and Commander Harris was sleeping. Mark Stiles was there, looking in on Harris.

The two occupants of the room seemed to pay them little mind. Rebecca Hall was busy focusing on preparing to draw blood from Mark Stiles, and Mark Stiles was busy focusing on Rebecca.

“You know,” said Stiles, leaning against an examination table as Rebecca, dressed in a thin white lab technician’s coat, inspected a hypodermic needle, “after that shambler got me in Hyattsburg I could barely walk—”

“I need some of your blood,” Rebecca said.

“What?”

“I need. Some. Of your. Blood. For the Doc.”

Rolling his eyes, Stiles folded back his sleeve. “The bite. It’s like a burn, you know? A never-ending throbbing? I could barely stay on my feet. And then you showed up with that morphine, and suddenly I could run again.”

“And then you drew off the infected and saved the rest of our lives. I’d say that makes us pretty even,” murmured Rebecca, flicking the needle with her index finger.

“If it wasn’t for you I couldn’t have done any of that.”

Rebecca shook her head. “I’ve done just as much bad as I have good since this whole thing started. Just—please—drop it with the score-keeping. We’re all damned for what we’ve had to do.”

Stiles, preoccupied, didn’t notice the needle descending toward his arm.

“Ow!” he cried, jumping a bit in his seat.

“Oh, don’t be a
girl,
” drawled Rebecca. “There. Let this pump out, and we’ll be all finished. This blood sample should give Anna something to work on for a while. Who knows? Maybe the secret to the vaccine is right here in this vial.”

“With a little luck,” said Stiles.

He took the hint, sitting quietly while the tube filled.

“Okay,” she said. “That’s enough for now.”

“Beautiful,” Stiles said, unrolling his sleeve. “Do you think we could—”

“I’m going to get this to Anna. Everyone else is either lounging around or out in the courtyard. Maybe you should join them.” Rebecca, sample in hand, made a beeline for the door.

“Wait!” protested Stiles. Rebecca Hall stopped slowly, and cast a glance over her shoulder.

It took a moment for the right words to come to Stiles. “Look, uh, I know you think we’re square, but you gave me a fighting chance. You saved my life, right? If I couldn’t run, I wouldn’t have gotten away with just the one bite. Look—I don’t care if you want to push me away or brush me off or whatever it is you’re trying to do, but I just want you to know one thing—one of these days, I’m going to repay the favor. Really.”

Rebecca seemed to consider this for a long moment. Finally, she gave a curt nod. “Thanks, Mark.”

With that, she disappeared through BL1’s swinging doors.

Stiles sat a moment in the examination room, alone, his face a mask. After a moment, he broke into a wistful smile.

“Hey, she called me Mark.”

Across the room, Agent Gregory Mason dropped the novel he’d been reading to his chest and turned his head to look at the soldier, smirking. “I’d call that a good start.”

Omaha, NE
30 June 2007
1815 hrs_

W
ELL BEFORE NIGHTFALL, THE
various groups had reassembled at the front of the Fac.

Brewster was the first to approach the bulging packs, and leaned heavily on the door.

A long moment of silence passed.

From the couch, Juni’s lilting voice drifted to his ears in a singsong manner. “That wasn’t what you were supposed to bring back.”

Brewster looked up at her, the happy smile still on his face, but now a little tired. “Better than dog food, isn’t it?”

“You got me there, GI.”

Brewster’s eyes adjusted to the low light, and he took in Juni, an impish look on her delicate features.

“You’re such a smart-ass. We’re not GIs anymore. Does stubbornness run in your family, or something?”

“Does it run in yours?”

Brewster looked uneasy for a moment, but quickly scoffed. “No.”

“Bet it does.”

“Doesn’t.”

“Does too.”

“All right, all right, all right. Kids,” muttered Sherman, rubbing at his temples as he walked up. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

The survivors in the Fac were less interested in the freshly foraged supplies the two groups had brought back than they were in the new faces.

While Jack the Welder and Junko Koji sorted canned goods in the makeshift kitchen-slash-break room with Stiles and Juni, Allen found himself peppered with questions about his cross-country trip. He was happy to answer.

Jack the Welder was giving Hal Dorne a tour of the grounds. So far, the retired Army tank mechanic had spotted several projects that needed tending to, from loose gaps in the perimeter to easy ways to bolster their defenses.

“I originally joined the Army to pay the bills,” Hal explained, “but I like building things from scratch for the hell of it. I’d’ve done it for free if it came to that. Now, for example, about a block away, I see a radio tower.” Hal pointed off in the distance, where a solitary metal structure stood. “We could use that. The whole way here, I was broadcasting a signal; who we were, where we were going. Never heard anything back.”

“Well, sure, if you could get it running. We couldn’t. And we tried. And even if you did get it to work,” Jack asked, “who are you going to talk to?”

Hal shrugged. “You never know. Could be a town in range with a working receiver. Or maybe one of our surviving sailors. Shortwave will go goddamn everywhere with an antenna and radio station power source.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Hal grinned at Jack. “I believe I will.”

The door to the Fac swung open and Francis Sherman scuffed dirt as he made his way across the courtyard to where the two men stood. “I take it Jack’s giving you the grand tour?”

Hal chuckled. “It ain’t the Plaza, Frank, but she’ll do in a pinch. I was just talking about trying to get that radio tower up and running again.”

“It’s shot,” said Sherman with a shake of his head. “We already tried.”

“That’s what Jack told me. Let me try my hand at it. I think I can coax a little power out of her.”

“If anyone can,” said Sherman, “it would be you. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh, right,” said Hal, throwing his arms in the air. “You’re a general. Looking to get in a debriefing, aren’t you?”

Sherman grinned. “You’ve got me.”

“You brass are all predictable. All right, so—got an office to talk in?”

“Actually,” said Sherman, tilting his head back toward the sun, “I figured we’d walk the perimeter and chat. Jack, you’re welcome to join us, if you wish.”

Jack waved them off. “I promised Mitsui I’d help him get dinner ready.”