The Clone Apocalypse (11 page)

“The sick bays are past capacity on the big ships. There haven’t been any deaths, yet. I don’t know how long it takes.
Magellan
was missing six days before we found her.”

Six days. Six days,
I thought. Sunny had given me the bug two days earlier; Perry MacAvoy came into contact with it one day ahead of me.
Three days, and he has one foot in the grave.
Was he halfway dead?

“I think I’m coming down with it,” I said. “I woke up feeling like an old man. How are you?”

Time passed. Six minutes and twenty seconds passed before he read my question. He answered simply, then six minutes and twenty seconds passed, and I read his response. He said, “Harris, I feel like hell.”

THIRTEEN

Nobody died of the flu on August 21, at least, no one that I heard about. Now that I kept alert to it, I noticed a lot of sick clones as I walked through the LCB.

I had two civilian secretaries, both women, both fine. I had one officer, sort of an attaché with civilian organizations, who specialized in running interference for me when politicians came to complain. One of my most overutilized staff members, he’d reported for work that day looking pale. I saw him later that afternoon huddled up with a large mug and a box of mixed teas on his desk. I didn’t know the poor guy’s name. He was chubby and old for a Marine, making him the perfect man for dealing with angry civilians. He came across as more sympathetic than the young and fit killing machines who manned our bases.

His face looked puffy and pale. He must have been hitting the tissues, too; the bottom of his nose had become red and raw. I walked over to him and read his name tag. He, of course, rose to his feet and snapped to attention.

The guy’s name was Chambers, Lieutenant Timothy Chambers. I asked, “Chambers, you feeling okay?”

“Yes, sir. Fine, sir.”

“You look like you’re battling a cold,” I said. “Why don’t you call it a day and get you some rest? Maybe you could swing by the infirmary on your way out.” I didn’t know which base he called home, but it would have an infirmary, and every infirmary had pills and nasal sprays. Nothing could cure him, but they might make him more comfortable.

I raised my voice and spoke to the rest of my staff, “That goes for the rest of you. There’s a flu going around. If any of you are under the weather, go home, take care of yourselves.” They didn’t make me repeat myself.

One of my natural-born secretaries rose to her feet as well. I decided I’d fire her when she returned to work the next day.

I went back to my desk to wait for the autopsy results. I thought I knew what the coroners would find. They’d cut open the
Magellan
corpses and find that those men had all had the flu. Assuming they cut into the bodies quickly enough to take a successful culture, they would incubate the virus, analyze it, and in another few weeks, they might even come up with a vaccine.

On the other hand, an old acquaintance of mine might already have all of that information. I thought about attacking the Unifieds with every able man under my command as I searched for Sunny, but that would only cause them to scatter. This operation called for both a scalpel and a hammer. I would handle the surgical part of the operation, slipping in behind enemy lines and searching for people and files; MacAvoy’s troops would handle the blunt-force trauma—smashing rats as they ran for cover.

I needed to find Sunny and any other high-ranking U.A. brass who might be waiting across the Anacostia. This didn’t call for an attack so much as an abduction. I would grab them, drug them, and do whatever it took to get everything I needed out of them.

No getting around it, I had mapped out an act of desperation. In another day or two, clones would start dying. They’d die in Washington. They’d die in Hawaii. They’d die in Djibouti. They’d die in space. Unless we figured something out quickly, the entire empire would end.

I met with MacAvoy first. He sat at his desk, a quart-sized pitcher of that foul flu-fighter drink by his side. His mystic sludge hadn’t protected him from the ravages of his cold. His face now looked bloodless, and he sniffled after fighting for every breath.

I began the conversation by saying, “If I wake up looking like you tomorrow, I may just shoot myself.”

“You’re going to look worse than me. I got my flu fighter. I’m going to specking beat this, Harris. You watch. God hasn’t made a bug that can specking kill me.”

I almost reminded him that it wouldn’t be the flu that killed him; it would be a death reflex. Had I said anything, I might have triggered a death reflex. Generally, clones ignored people when dropped hints that they were clones, but in his weakened state, MacAvoy might have been more vulnerable.

I asked, “How is your troop readiness?”

He pulled a gallon jug from the refrigerator in his office and used it to refill the orange goop in the smaller pitcher. The other times I’d seen his flu fighter, it was always in a mug. This time he had it in a glass container. I saw the drink in all of its viscous, speckled, molasses-like glory. He brought the drink to his lips, paused to work up his courage, and guzzled.

“How much of that have you taken?” I asked.

“This is my third pitcher today,” he said.

On some level, he knew. MacAvoy had to have figured out that he was a clone. He had to have known it because he had caught a bug that only bit clones. But most likely, he’d only worked it out in his subconscious.

There was something glorious about MacAvoy—even when he was sick and pale and weak, he had a unique majesty. There was something primitive and raw and unafraid that made him great, even if the only reason he wasn’t afraid was because he was too stupid to be afraid. He was so convinced of his own invincibility that he never gave in to fear. He never hid his feelings. The man’s baldly straightforward approach to combat baffled his enemies. Maybe he’d been lucky all along, but I refused to believe that his luck had finally run out.

MacAvoy coughed and said, “Harris, I have enough healthy clones to bury the specking state of Maryland in synthetic DNA,” and grinned. I couldn’t help noticing that his drink had left an oily orange mustache across his upper lip. “I can have two full divisions of infantry and artillery ready to move on your command.”

“How about bullets?” I asked.

“We have plenty of bullets.”

“Shield busters?” I asked.

“Oh. Yeah. Those,” he said.

“Have you started making them?”

“We started; I’m not certain how many we have.” He raised his hand and coughed into it. He looked down, then wiped his hand clean with a cloth. Almost predictably, his makeshift handkerchief was a standard-issue silicone gun towel.

The poor stiff examined his hand to make sure he’d cleaned all the phlegm from it, then said, “Let me check.” Then he picked up an old-fashioned handset, and said, “Sergeant Dex . . . Yes, sergeant, put me through to the factory. Yes, at this hour. I don’t care if the plant is closed. Call him at his house.”

A moment passed, and someone took the call. MacAvoy said, “Yes, well, I don’t care what time it is. Listen here, have you started manufacturing the rounds I requested?”

“Yes, yes; I am aware of that.”

“We always knew it would be a slow process. How many do you have? A hundred thousand? A hundred thousand, that’s not very many.”

“Yeah. Yes, I understand that.”

“Hold on . . .” He hit a button to switch lines, and said, “Hey, Dex, you got any nukes over there? Yeah? Keep one handy; I may need it.”

Lowering the handset from his mouth, he said, “Civilian contractor.” That explained a lot. Had his soldiers been making those rounds, they would have been at it around the clock.

He and the factory owner exchanged a few pleasantries and MacAvoy lowered the handset. “I have a hundred thousand rounds. If the Unies have more than a hundred thousand men over there, we might have a problem.”

Naval Intelligence estimated that they had under twenty thousand troops.

MacAvoy grinned, and asked, “Want to crush the miserable specks?”

He frowned when I answered, “That’s not what I had in mind.”

“What’s the objective?”

“I want to find Sunny,” I said.

“Oh for speck’s sake, Harris! This isn’t about getting one last . . .”

“She’s high up in their dirty-work chain,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “Why do you think they chose her to infect us, you and me? Do you think she was walking around with that flu for weeks, or do you think she shot herself up with it before the convoy picked her up?

“She probably keeps it in test tubes. She might even have blueprints for brewing up more.”

“Can’t Tasman get that info from the encryption bandit?” asked MacAvoy.

“If it’s in there, it’s encrypted,” I said. “He hasn’t been able to access it.”

“Do you really think she’ll have anything?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, “but I’d rather be out there killing U.A. soldiers than sitting around here waiting to die.”

That sentiment resonated with MacAvoy. He said, “Harris, you don’t even know if she went back to the Central District. How do you plan on finding her, a door-to-door search?”

“I want to spread a net,” I said. “I’m going to go in alone and ask questions. I’ll shake the bushes while you and your men catch everything that comes out the other side.”

“You know, Harris, sooner or later, you’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Sooner,” I said. “I’m already dying.”

“That’s not what Tasman says; he says you’re the only one that isn’t going to die.”

“Sounds lonely,” I said. “I’d rather go with the herd.”

MacAvoy reminded me of the simple facts. He said, “You won’t have a death reflex.”

“What exactly do you think the Unified Authority will do once I’m alone? Do you think they’re going to let me go? They blame me for the rebellion, for the whole damn war. The ships, the men, the planets; hell, as far as they’re concerned, it’s probably my fault the aliens came back.”

“You could run,” said MacAvoy. “Harris, we’re all going to die. You don’t need to die with us.”

There it was again. He knew he would die. On some level, he knew he was a clone; other clones would have died by now. Something had changed him.
Maybe he has a defective death gland,
I thought, and I wondered if that was even possible.

“Get out while you still can. Find someplace to hide. Take a specking Explorer and hightail your ass to another specking planet.”

“Another planet?” I asked. “Are you joking? What other planet would you suggest? They’re all ash. The only one with people on it is Terraneau. For all we know, the only people there are the same ones killing us with the flu.

“Look, I’d rather die killing the men who killed me than lying in bed. How about it?”

“You’re joking, right? Is that a trick question? If I’m going, I’m taking as many of those specks with me as I can. I’m shoving grenades up my ass and farting out pins.”

I watched him carefully as he spoke. The color returned to his face. He didn’t cough or rub his nose.

“If I get shot tonight, how much time do you think it will shave off my life?” I asked. “A couple of days, maybe.” I answered my own question.

“You’re one day ahead of me, Perry. Tomorrow maybe I’ll look like you. The next day, I’m already laid up in bed, and the Unifieds find me. Then what? I’ll be a circus act. They’ll try me for war crimes; it’ll be a specking circus.”

MacAvoy acquiesced, then we brought Hauser and General Strait in on the discussion. The final plan was simple enough. At 19:00, I’d go behind enemy lines. The Unifieds didn’t have guard posts or barbed-wire fences. The same roads still ran through their side of town and ours.

As I entered from the west, MacAvoy would surround the insurgents on all sides. I’d make trouble, and if that didn’t work, my Marines would come in after me. Once the trouble began, MacAvoy’s soldiers would stop and search anyone trying to flee the scene. Strait’s fighters would target any jets that entered the atmosphere. Hauser’s carriers and destroyers would attack any ships that approached from outside the atmosphere.

Admittedly, we had a weak plan, but everyone acknowledged it as a plan nonetheless. Maybe something would come of it, a virus culture or a blueprint. Maybe I’d spot Sunny and put a bullet through her gorgeous head. Maybe MacAvoy’s soldiers would catch Andropov.

*   *   *

As the meeting ended, MacAvoy spoke to the other generals in a conspiratorial voice. He said, “You know, I checked my inventory, and I got a bunch of nukes sitting in my armory.”

Strait must have thought he was joking; he said, “Maybe we should light one up.”

MacAvoy said, “Did you boys know there are abandoned train tunnels under this building?”

“Train tunnels? What were the Unifieds doing with underground trains?” I asked. The capital had a train system, but it ran aboveground. As far as I knew, the trains in Washington, D.C., had always run aboveground.

“You’re thinking modern history, Harris. Who lived here before the Unies? We’re talking American-made.”

“American-made? Are they still down there?” asked Hauser.

“I went down for a look,” said MacAvoy.

“They can’t be safe?” said Strait.

“Hell, I’m not looking for a train ride; I want to turn the tunnels into specking missile silos and blow them up.

“If we’re all going to die from that specking flu that they gave us, we might as well go out with a big specking bang, right? Give those evil specks a going-away present.

“I say we run this like a specking church raffle; the last man breathing gets to push the button. That’s probably going to be you, Harris, which is a real kick in the nuts. You get to flame the Unies, the natural-borns, and the whole backstabbing lot.” MacAvoy grinned, laughed, coughed, drank more flu fighter, and grimaced at the bad taste it left in his mouth.

MacAvoy meant every word of it, but Strait still thought he was joking. He said, “General, maybe you should tie a bow around your devices and call them a going-away present.”

I knew MacAvoy well enough to recognize when he was serious. I asked, “How are you going to get them into the tunnels?”

MacAvoy was pale and sweaty, but he had a satisfied grin. Looking more like a lunatic than a man with the flu, he said, “Marine; there are tunnels crisscrossing the whole damn city. My boys have located doorways all over this damn town. Getting bombs into the tunnel isn’t the problem. Getting ’em in unseen might be a bitch.” He winked at me, and asked, “Anyone else want to leave Tobias a going-away present?”

“Who says we’re going away?” I asked.

MacAvoy laughed, and said, “Hoooooahhh, Marine!”

I stifled a cough of my own, and answered, “Hoooorrrrah!”

Strait rolled his eyes and glared at both of us.