Monsters of the Apocalypse (14 page)

Jacob
watched the silhouette turn into the familiar shape of a man as he got
close. The man looked down at Coughlin's body. He looked up at
Jacob, lips pursed.

"He try
to leave?"

"Yeah."

"I must
have forgot to tell them not to shoot you two if you left. I have to admit,
I thought you'd make a break for it yourself."

"What'd
the boss say?"

"Follow
me."

Jacob smiled
and stepped astride the man.

"I get
the sense that you don't like mutants much."

"Whatever
gave you that idea?"

"Is it
because we eat people?"

"It
puts me off a bit, yeah."

The boss was
a man named Yuri Dimitrikov and he met Jacob on the second floor of the
building in a corner office with a view of the surrounding downtown. He
was a thin man, with a stark widow's peak and skin that was almost
translucent. He smoked a cigar and seemed more than happy to light a
second for Jacob, the large cigar appearing small in Jacob's claw.

"So
none of you got The Shot, huh? How'd that happen."

"They
didn't give out The Shot to inmates."

"Ah, I
see. You were mobsters."

"Still
are. We were gonna die in jail. Why give us The Shot? A
missile hit the prison, but an Indian came and let us out before then. He
worked for you. We pay our debts. We owe you a lot, Jacob.
All of mankind does. But, I'm not sure how much mankind owes Mutant
Jacob, if you follow me."

"I
do. I appreciate that this is an unusual scenario, what with me being a
human hero in the past and you in the present being, well, my dinner."

"You
don't seem crazy. I thought The Shot made you crazy. Most mutants
talk to themselves and run around naked, but you don't."

"The
Shot gives you a fever sometimes, makes you feel weird. The way it speeds
up your internals is an odd sensation. The world looks different, your
senses change and it can be a bit of an overload. Add in the
radiation… But, in the end, it might make you weird, it might make you
eat people, but The Shot doesn't cause insanity. Now eating people, most
people, normal people, if all of the sudden their urges took over and they
found themselves chasing down a person, killing them and eating them alive -
that would make them crazy."

"But,
not you?"

"I
haven't eaten a human yet, but I doubt it will be too shattering to my
psyche."

"Why is
that, Jacob?"

"Being
a crazy human can make for a sane monster. In any case, I want to talk to
you about the satellite feed, Nestor's feed. You see, I need that code or
hack or whatever it is that you use to watch it. I need you to give it to
me."

The pale
Dimitrikov smiled and puffed on the cigar. He rolled up his eyes and
seemed to think over the words for a playful minute before nodding his head.

"You
can have it. Of course. I owe you more than that. That's
nothing. Your men saved my life. Here's what you need,"
Dimitrikov pulled out a thumb drive and slid it across the table.

"I just
hook this up to a computer?"

"Any
hacker can make it work. Find the encrypted feed, attach this, it does the
rest. Nestor's life becomes your own personal sitcom."

"You
see it in real time?"

"No.
Nestor's camera beams what he sees to the satellite which sends it to the
Island, Nevers hacks it, then he does a data transfer to his own encrypted feed
which that little thumb drive then un-encrypts. It all takes time.
It's hard to gauge exactly, but it seems to be hours behind. Which is good for
Nestor, no? You're kind can chase, but never set a trap. It's why
he's not dead already."

"Traps
don't usually work on Nestor. Do you write the books?"

"One of
my associates became a writer in prison. I like to indulge my men,"
he smiled. "So you don't want it for hunting? In that case, if
you don't mind my asking, why do you want it so bad? Humans find it
inspiring to see a man surviving alone. We watch because Nestor is our
hero, a legend, a saint to us, a prophet. What is he to a mutant if not
food?"

Jacob set
the cigar down on the table and looked at his surroundings. He carefully
placed the thumb drive in his pocket with awkward fingers.

"Oh,
just a friend I guess," Jacob shrugged. He then stood up and moved
with his slow and casual swagger to the window and looked down at the streets
below.

"This
building use to boast some of the highest rent in town due to that view,"
Dimitrikov said from his desk. "Now there's nothing but dirt out
there. You know, I always took trees and grass, even the sky for
granted. Now that they're gone, I miss them. What's there to look
at anymore?"

"Come
see for yourself," Jacob laughed.

Dimitrikov
got up and stood beside Jacob. He watched as the Shadow Army finished
disarming, and began eating, the Syndicate guards. Dimitrikov sighed and
turned to look at Jacob.

"The
irony is that," Jacob talked to the glass, unable to take his eyes from
the feeding that was occurring below, "you didn't get The Shot, but you
went ahead and fed off the people anyway. We became monsters, you chose
to be monsters. Do you see the irony?"

"Please,
please, Jacob, we can work something out."

Jacob
laughed as he finally pulled himself from the window and moved towards the
small man.

"I'd really
like you to acknowledge the irony."

"See
you in hell, Jacob."

Jacob leaped
forward and bit into the throat of the man. The warm blood of his pierced
jugular flooded into Jacob's mouth. A tingling pleasure pulsed through
Jacob's entire body and the bones of the man's neck crunched easily under the
pressure of his jaws and the sharpness of his teeth.

Nestor woke
up in a dark room. A man was heating up something on a propane stove in
the middle of the floor. With his face now uncovered, Nestor saw that the
man was dark and bearded with delicate features. The same smiling eyes
moved up to Nestor's face as he began to cough.

“A salaam
alaikum. How you feeling, Nestor?”

“Been
better.”

"Well,
you look better."

"How
long was I out?"

"A
week. I thought you were gonna die for a while, but you're tough.
It’s the radiation, the fallout from the bombs. You shouldn’t go out in
that. The air’s bad.”

"Anything
happen in that time?"

"People
died I would think."

“Your car...
how do you have a car?”

“Yeah, an
old Mazda M3. Last of the combustion engines, doesn't use a
battery. It wasn't a successful model really, ran great but the public
was so excited about those electro-cells. EMPC's couldn't hurt these
guys, though. Most of them are gone, but if you know where to look you
can find about anything out there in the world. All free for the taking.”

Nestor
reached to his waist, for his gun.

“Your guns
are over there. I went ahead and cleaned them for you. I could see
that they had been well cared for, which is good. You got to take care of
your tools. If you do, they’ll take care of you.”

“My knife?”

“It’s there
too. You want me to bring them over to you?”

“Don’t
figure in my condition that I could stop you from killing me even with a gun.”

“Probably
not. You don’t need to worry about that yet.”

“Will I
eventually have to?”

“I expect
so.”

The man held
up his arm showing the scar where The Shot had been given.

"It's
this Shot that makes men mutants. It warps them. Soon it will warp
me."

"The
Shot?"

"Yes.
The Shot. It was supposed to save us. Now, well, it’s just a matter
of time before I become one of them.”

“What are
they?”

“Not sure
really. Some people say it’s the radiation, that it messed with the way
The Shot works. Some say the scientist who made The Shot made a
mistake. The Shot, they say, was supposed to accelerate things.
Apparently one of the things it accelerates is the growth of our fingers into
claws, our teeth into fangs, our bones into armor... Interesting, isn’t
it? If you speed up a person’s body enough, they evolve into a terrifying
killing machine. They seem to become animals almost, the teeth grow out, and
the nails turn vicious. They eat people. Living people, preferably.
That’s why they prefer to use their bare hands and chase you down. Thrill
of the hunt, like wolves. They eat the dead if nothing to hunt can be
found. I know it can’t be long now, that I turn, that I start looking at
you as food. That’s a hard thing to know is coming. That's a hard
thing to face.”

“You should
try facing it from my point of view.”

The man
stared at Nestor in silence. Nestor tried to get up, but the man put his
hand on Nestor chest and pushed down. It felt like razors slicing his
lungs apart. He coughed until he could again manage to clear a sip of air
back into his broken body.

"Not so
fast, friend. You need to rest. Sleep, Nestor, as long as we're
human you have nothing to fear. I give my word."

"And
when you change?"

"I
don't suppose you’re a praying man then?"

"I've
always had a gun."

“Well, I
guess that’ll work too.”

For a moment
Nestor's vision blurred and then everything went black.

The man was
sitting by Nestor's bedside when he awoke. Nestor didn't know if that
meant he'd been out a short while or if the man had stayed there all
night. He coughed for a few minutes after sitting up. Once he had
gained back his breath the man gave him water. Then he gave Nestor tea
and bread.

"Eat
slowly, Nestor. Slowly."

After eating
Nestor drank more water, washed his face and hands and then sat down on the bed
to talk to the man.

"What's
your name?"

"Aamir."

"You're
a praying man, Aamir?"

"I am,
Mr. Bravo.”

“How do you
know my name?”

"Your
feed, of course. Isn’t that why Jacob sent you in there, so that the
President would give his little speech and we’d all see it?"

“That's what
Jacob said. So it worked?”

“Yes.”

“And The
Island? What is happening there?”

“I don’t
know. I’m good with cars, not people. I’ve always been sort of an
outsider. What friends I had are gone now. I haven’t heard a word
from anyone in a month. Just luck I happened across you while I was
foraging that day. You would have died had I not happened by.”

"I
suspect I still will," Nestor said with a sip of tea.

The man
smiled and leaned back in his chair.

"Yes,
Nestor, I suppose you will."

“So, before
you stopped hearing things, what did you hear?”

“I heard
most of the cities are gone. Bombed out by our own government. Many
of the rural areas were spared since they hadn't been good targets.
Predicting this, the government had made sure those areas had been the most
thoroughly inoculated. So that is what’s left of America, the old and
impotent, the young and impotent who hadn't served in the military, and the
inoculated. I guess you could call us the lucky ones."

"Have
any of them found you here? The mutants?”

“The ones
who knew I was out here from before... they came. I had to...”

“You had to
kill your friends.”

“Yes.
They were my friends.”

“I’m sorry.”

“A lot of
them owed me money anyway.”

Nestor
managed to stand up and looked out the window.

“Jesus.
It looks like a nightmare, that sky...”

“Get some
more sleep, it’s what you need right now.”

“Where are
we?”

“A small
town in west Maryland. It was called Hilmore before it all blew up.
Hell’s a fine name for it now.”

Caleb finished tucking Mary into
bed.

"I'm too old to be tucked
in."

"Should I stop doing
it?"

"No. I just want it
acknowledged that I'm not a child," she said with her monotone
earnestness.

"Okay. I acknowledge
that. You did good today. If you keep memorizing code and
algorithms at this rate, you'll be better than me."

"You know Keelie, the
cook?"

"Sure."

"She says that you are an
idiot. That by teaching me how to hack you're making yourself
obsolete."

"Did she?"

"What's obsolete mean?"

"Outdated. Without
value. Not needed."

"Doesn't that worry
you?"

"Not even a little.
Now shut up and go to sleep because I'm sick of you," he said with a
smile.

She laughed and threw a pillow at
him.

"Keelie said she'd tell me
the story of Nestor Bravo."

"Who's Nestor Bravo?"
Caleb said, eyebrow raised in confusion.

"Come on! It's been
months and you won't tell me who he is! It's not fair."

"Life's not fair and Nestor
Bravo isn't the kind of guy that little girls need to hear stories about!"

"We spend all day hacking a
feed to watch him and everyone in the world knows who he is except me."

Caleb nodded and sat down on the
edge of his bed. Her big eyes locked onto him and he smiled.

"Okay. All
right. Fine I'll tell you about him, but I'm not a great story
teller."

"Keelie's pretty good."

"Shut up about Keelie
already!" Caleb laughed. "Okay, so before you were born, there
used to be all sorts of countries. You’d get on a plane, fly for hours,
land somewhere and everyone would look different, speak a different
language. There were wars between these different countries. For a
long time they were fought by people, soldiers. Guys who were trained to
kill. But, as time went on, technology made the wars different. The
drones, the robot planes that fly over our heads even now, they became the
weapon of choice after awhile. Drones, long-range missiles, satellite
imagery, they just took right over. So, soldiers became…"

"Obsolete?"

"Very good, kiddo. So,
they stopped training soldiers. There just stopped being armies of
trained killers all together. And for a while, there was basically a
period of peace. Satellites overhead keeping an eye, drones doing
circuits, blowing up anything suspicious... it was a kind of peace
anyway. Then, one day, this little nothing country, they show up on
all the satellite feeds. It looked like they’d built a nuclear
facility. Which meant they could build a weapon that could do… well, make
the world how it is now. But, this was confusing, because you don't build
anything like that overnight. It should have been caught earlier.
Something was very wrong."

"Where were you when this
happened?"

"I was in college, at a
place called UCLA. That doesn’t matter really. All of us just went
about our lives, not too concerned as the machines of war arose. We all
just figured that though this was weird, it was nothing a well-placed missile
couldn't fix. America, China and the UN Army surround this little
country, this little facility and they try and negotiate a peaceful solution,
but this little country ain’t talking.

"So, what do you know?
The world attacked. The world had no idea what it was exactly they
were attacking, but they went ahead and attacked anyway. That was the
moment where the world saw that this little country was able to sneak by with
this facility, because it wasn’t a nuclear facility - it was something else
entirely. The nuclear residue they’d detected was simply the last step,
the battery being put inside a new kind of weapon. It was an EMPC,
Electro-Magnetic Pulse Cannon, a ray gun that would shut down every computer,
vehicle, or whatever in a five hundred mile radius and turn it into a bomb.

"With a push of a button
this little country took out about half the world's military. Drones
exploded in mid-air. A thing we don't even have anymore, drone tanks,
boom. Everything just blew up. Satellites were out of range of the ray,
but the missiles they guided, got scrambled and landed wherever gravity took
them once they entered the realm of this weapon's power. Just like that,
a new superpower was born. It was terrifying. No one knew what was
going to happen next. And then, while we were wondering, the whole thing
was over."

"Because of Nestor
Bravo?"

"Because
of Nestor Bravo. You see, it turned out that America had kept a few
squadrons of Special Forces soldiers, trained killers, around for little
things, like killing individual lunatics that threatened the greater
good. I don't know, it was all secret, to this day we don't know much
about them, just that they existed and the best, most dangerous one was a squad
called the Alpha Team. It was fifty guys. Lethal. Vicious.
They were so highly trained that they’d never left a trace, they were spread
all over, and no one had even heard of them, until they stopped this lunatic
and saved the world on, "The Night of a Hundred Bullets."

"Was
Nestor the leader?"

"No.
Jacob Rothschild was."

"Jacob?
The one who…"

"The
same. Their political go between was October Carnegie, the man who is now
President. How they pulled it off no one knows to this day. It's
all myth, but they say that the dictator of this little country had a thousand
soldiers protecting this weapon, this EMPC. Somehow Nestor and Jacob
snuck past them while the other forty-eight of their squad created a
distraction. The distraction was effective, in that they killed half the
soldiers, but eventually the forty-eight Americans were overrun and the only
two left were Nestor and Jacob. Between them they had one hundred bullets
and there were five hundred soldiers coming for them. But they didn't
run. Instead, somehow, they survived. They held off the soldiers
long enough to shut down the weapon, and allow the last remaining drones to
come in and finish the rest of the dictator's army off."

"Wasn't
it all recorded on Nestor's feed?"

"Yes.
But, it got erased. No one knows why, but the story says that the
government erased it, because they didn't want anyone else to see how the EMPC
worked, or could be shut down. You see America seized it and put it on
their satellites. Which is why when the Great War broke out, we were the
only country able to stop the missiles. The rest of the world just went
ahead and nuked each other, until America was all that was left."

"Everyone
else is dead?"

"We've
never heard otherwise. Search parties were sent to Canada and Mexico
early on, but they couldn't find anyone and they couldn't make it too far in
because the radiation was too strong. Drones flew search missions farther
out, but if they picked up a sign of survivors the government kept it a secret.

"So
what happened to Nestor then? After all that?"

"They
said Jacob killed Nestor over a woman, before the Great War. They also
said he never existed. I guess neither was true. Jacob went
underground, claiming he'd been attacked by October Carnegie and his uncle
Sage, who wanted him out of the way so he could become President - which he
did. Jacob became the head of a Shadow Army aimed at killing
October. And that brings us to now, bedtime."

"Caleb?"

"What?!
Little girls need sleep!" Caleb shouted while squeezing her foot.
"Not that you're a little girl."

"Why
are you training me to be a hacker? Why are you making yourself
obsolete?"

"I'm
not making myself obsolete. Keelie is wrong. I
was
obsolete,
baby. I've always just been someone. Someone to talk to or sleep
with, someone to keep you warm as the world ends. You changed that. You
gave me value. You need me and I need you to be okay, to be safe.
I'm keeping you safe because that's what family does, that's
all."

"We're
family?"

"Don't
you think so?" Caleb asked with a look of concern.

"My
family was… to me family was never…"

"Yeah,
my family sucked too, but, a lot of people have… had good ones. I used to
see them, they were just like the happy families in movies and books. I
always wanted one. I figure you and me, we are one. A good
one."

"Yeah,"
she smiled. "We're family."

"Damn
right, baby, now get some sleep."