LZR-1143: Evolution Read online

  Her voice was still a little incredulous, as if she couldn’t believe it herself.

  “Why not kill him before then? It would have sealed his escape, since none of us could fly the damn thing.”

  “Hartliss said it was because Fred didn’t know how to make the repairs on the British bird.”

  I nodded, still somewhat stunned at Fred’s identity and his role in the government’s cover-up, although with some distance from it, it made logical sense. Send an operative to keep me from disclosing Maria’s condition. Make sure the trial was rigged—not a tough job, considering I was found with the murder weapon in hand at the scene of the crime—and make sure I was pumped full of enough drugs to keep me from remembering my own name, not to mention the condition my wife was in when I came home that night.

  I still didn’t believe this shit about Maria. Plain and simple. There was another goddamned explanation for what happened, and it involved the vaccine she had at home with her. I knew it. She hadn’t stolen the virus.

  But then how did she become infected? It all came back to that question, and I didn’t have an answer to that.

  “So how’s Hartliss,” I asked, not sure that I wanted to know the answer. “Will he make it? What about Anaru and Lansing?”

  She grimaced. “We didn’t see them on the way out, but that doesn’t mean anything. We were fairly occupied at the time. You were bleeding all over the cabin, and Hartliss was holding his stomach together with one hand. I can’t imagine they made it, but you never know.”

  She lowered her voice, looking briefly over her shoulder before turning back to lock me in a serious stare. “He was really badly hurt, Mike. He lost a lot of blood, and there was an infection from the bullet wound. They think … well … they don’t think…”

  She bit her lower lip. “He’s bad, Mike. Real bad.”

  I looked over her shoulder, as if expecting someone to come barreling down the hall. Her affect was nervous, as if she was saying something forbidden.

  “The infection, is it …?” I started, not wanting to hear the response.

  She shook her head sharply. “No, no. It’s not that, but he’s septic. The ship’s doctors don’t know if there’s anything more they can do for him.” She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. She looked at me, searchingly. As if silently asking me a question to which I had no answer.

  My mind was traveling at warp speed, trying to reconcile reality with circumstance.

  Time for the fifty-million dollar question. The one for which I was pretty sure I had a fifty-million dollar answer.

  Raising my hand and turning it in front of her like a commercial for skin conditioner, I made a questioning face.

  “So, I see your wound is healed up nicely. I see that my theory was correct, yes?” I wiggled my fingers in front of my face. “That vaccine—it not only kept me from turning, but it has restorative qualities, just like Maria told me they were working on.”

  I was sure of this much, now. Sure that it had kept me from turning, and that it had a healing effect; that I had done the right thing when I injected Kate in the facility.

  That was a relief. I think I was half-delirious when I decided to do that.

  But looking back on it, even then I was sure. Of Maria’s love, and her integrity; and that whatever it was that she brought home, it hadn’t been the virus.

  “I was wondering if you’d remembered,” she said, looking over her shoulder again, “but it’s not the time, okay? For that matter, it’s best if you don’t mention … anything … until we’ve talked, okay? It’s not safe. Don’t say anything about bites, or wounds, or healing. When we got here, our wounds had already healed, so no one really knows about those effects. They just thought it was head trauma, and I told them we were both stunned from an explosion. We’ll talk later, all right?”

  I didn’t understand. If we had a winning drug, here, why not jack people full of it?

  I tried to persuade the judge.

  “But if that stuff has healing properties, why not pump it into Hartliss? We should be mass-producing it, getting it to CDC or the Army medical people, or … shit, I don’t know. Who makes Viagra? Let’s call those guys. They can do some commercials with us on a tub on a hill over the ocean … well, not us, us, but … people. Shit, I mean, this is it, right?”

  I was flustered, and apparently my mental pictures were escaping into speech, now. But her reluctance didn’t make sense. We were with the good guys now, right?

  Well, the good guys that worked for the same government that had me thrown away for life in a mental institution for a crime I didn’t commit against someone who was already dead, killed by a virus they had manufactured.

  But times were changing and we had to stay flexible, right?

  She looked around, moving me to the side of the hallway. Her voice got lower, her eyes serious. She pushed me gently until my back was against the steel wall. A metal pipe jabbed me softly in the back as she leaned close.

  “Not now, okay? Just pretend like nothing happened. You hit your head and knocked yourself out on the chopper ride, and that’s all you remember. You really need to trust me on this. I promise I’ll explain later. We don’t have time right now. We’re expected to be in the infirmary ASAP.”

  I trusted her implicitly, so I let it drop, despite the burning questions I had in my mind.

  Besides, anything that got her to push me against the wall like that again couldn’t be all that bad. She smelled like fruit.

  I never could understand how women could do that; find a fruity, girly smell in the midst of a shit storm.

  I realized suddenly that I was staring. She stared back, a small grin on her face. Self-consciously, I pushed off from the wall and we started walking again.

  Trying for a recovery, I asked “Okay, so then at least tell me why I was by myself in an empty room. I’ll take that.”

  She smiled, opening the door to the infirmary with one hand.

  “Honestly, we didn’t know how you’d react. It took you longer to recover. I woke up woozy and disoriented, and we didn’t want you hurting anyone … or yourself … out of confusion when you woke up. We were monitoring you on the security cameras. Hence my visit and witnessing of your little … show.”

  She waved her arm forward underhand, pointing into the small hospital in a greeting gesture. “After you.”

  It was a large room, with perhaps 30 beds, 15 to a side. Several crew were present, mostly nurses. We walked slowly down the aisle between beds, and I halfheartedly noted that for a country in the midst of a viral outbreak with mind-boggling death rates, this room seemed startlingly under utilized. Only one bunk had an occupant.

  It was Hartliss.

  His face was slack, his eyes closed. Tubes protruded from every conceivable part of his body, some pumping fluid in, some draining fluid out. He was a far cry from the vivacious, jolly chap we had known. This was a man clearly on the verge of death.

  Kate whispered to me, as we approached.

  “Sometimes he’s awake, sometimes not. Just try not to show too much pity. He notices. He’s in and out of the real world, so you might not need to worry about it; they’ve got him on a lot of meds.”

  From the corner of my eye, I noticed a short, middle-aged man with thick glasses move toward us. He carried a clipboard and a smile, receding hairline threatening to reach mid-crown. Dark blue BDU’s hid under a too-large white overcoat. A shiny metal name plate, not unlike the one Kate was wearing when we first met, proclaimed his name and rank.

  “Mr. McKnight, I presume,” he said, taking inappropriate liberty with my patience as I stared at my injured friend. I glanced at Kate, who made a quick ‘bear with him’ smile, and engaged our new friend.

  “Yes, pleased to meet you,” I paused and took in his name and rank, “Lieutenant Cowell.” Finishing, I looked again at Hartliss, trying to silently make the point that I wanted to see my friend.

  “I suppose you want to see your friend,” he acquiesced, motion
ing toward Hartliss. “Let’s talk after you’re done. I need to take a look at you, make sure you don’t have a concussion.” Thankfully, he backed off.

  I nodded once in thanks, and sat on the bunk next to Hartliss. I could hear the rasping of his labored breathing; slowly, painfully, he took each gasp. Then I tried to smile as Hartliss opened his eyes and stared directly at me. His mouth opened slowly, and his arm raised from his side. He muttered something intelligible and low, almost guttural.

  I couldn’t hear. Slowly, I went to a knee next to his bed. Kate leaned over, partially blocking the doctor from view.

  “Oo … er … ittin…” he whispered, trying clumsily to grab my arm.

  I didn’t understand.

  Looking to Kate for explanation, I jerked when his hand grabbed my arm in a vice-like grip and dragged me forward, almost touching his lips to my cheek. Spittle flecked his lips, and his eyes were wild. But his voice was now perfectly clear.

  “Bitten,” he rasped softly. “You were bloody bitten!”

  Then his head dropped to his pillow, eyes closing, and the loud beeping of his heart rate monitor rang against the metal walls of the room.

  I recoiled in surprise as several nurses materialized to tend to their patient. I stood up quickly, looking suspiciously at Lieutenant Cowell, trying to discern if anyone but Kate and I had heard what Hartliss had said, but the doctor was engaged with Hartliss now, issuing curt orders and checking various dials and readouts.

  We backed up together as I whispered to Kate.

  “What the hell? Didn’t you tell him about the vaccine? Why would he be worried about my having been bitten?”

  She grimaced, glancing furtively over my shoulder before talking softly under her breath.

  “He was worried the whole flight back. I told him that we found the vaccine, and that you weren’t going to turn, but he had seen enough to feel circumspect. Shit, if I hadn’t seen what I saw, I’d be pretty damn suspicious myself, but he had it under control after I talked to him, before we landed. But he’s delirious now, and he flashes in and out of his right mind.”

  I nodded, thinking.

  “Well I guess that cuts both ways, right? He might say something, but since there’s no evidence of the bite wound, no one would believe him.”

  She smiled, nodding slightly behind me. I turned, catching the hint.

  “My apologies Mr. McKnight, but your friend has been fighting for his life since we caught hold of him. The good Doctor here,” gesturing to Kate, “informed us of the circumstances leading to his wound, and of your flight from the city.”

  At this, I glanced toward Kate briefly. So apparently she had lied about the entire jig, huh? I’m wondering how she dealt with my state of mind. The guy was talking to me like a normal person, so she must have convinced them somehow.

  Cowell was looking at me expectantly.

  “Yeah, yeah. A real barnburner, Doc. We barely made it out alive. I feel lucky to be here.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, not having been given the back-story, but I lapsed back into my day job.

  “It was real sticky for the last week, but we managed.”

  He looked at Kate and back to me, frowning slightly. “Really? I wouldn’t think that being locked inside a Federal courthouse and then aboard a secure vessel would have been so taxing. I understand that you barely escaped from the Liverpool with your lives, but biding time with other survivors until the collision shouldn’t have been too trying.”

  I paused, trying to adjust.

  Clearly, Kate’s story to the officers on board was different than the real one. “Well, you know how it is. Everyone on there treated me differently, and then there was the whole zombie holocaust outside … after the last year or so, my nerves are a bit frayed.”

  This was definitely true.

  He nodded appreciatively, frown gone.

  “I understand completely. In fact, if not for the news from Kate of your acquittal hearing the day before the outbreak, we’d have been inclined to take precautions with you, but considering our unique circumstances on board and on land…well, we have bigger fish to fry.”

  Turning, he motioned for us to follow him to the end of the room, where he asked me to sit down on the edge of a hospital bed. The sheets were crisp and clean, and the room smelled of bleach. It was an odd sense, this one of being clean and safe. I could get used to it.

  “I’ll just take a cursory look at you, check you for a concussion. You two were in remarkably good shape when you arrived; if not for your unconsciousness, you would have been in the best shape of anyone we’ve seen come aboard in the last couple weeks.”

  “How many?” I asked curiously before his penlight flashed brightly in my left eye.

  “Survivors?” he responded, waving the light back and forth before moving to the other eye.

  “One hundred and seventeen to date,” he answered clinically. “Two hundred and thirty-eight extractions in total. One hundred and twenty one casualties from the total.” He grunted as he finished the second eye.

  “I must say, Mr. McKnight…” he began before I interrupted.

  “Please, it’s Mike.”

  He smiled briefly. “Okay, Mike then.” The pen light flashed again and he cocked his head to the side, impressed.

  “You have some interesting light reflexes. I’ve never seen pupils react so fast. A little light-sensitive, but that’s to be expected after a blow to the head. Otherwise, you appear to be perfectly recovered. I’ll see you again tomorrow to check up on the pupil reaction, but otherwise, you’re good to go. No residual damage that I can see.”

  He stared at me curiously for half a second, then swiveled away on his stool, writing something down. “You’re cleared from my end.”

  “You said you had two hundred and thirty-eight extractions, but a total of a hundred and twenty-one casualties,” I began, inclined to believe I knew the answer already. “What happened to the casualties? Did they die on board?”

  He continued writing, not looking up. His voice was flat, unemotional.

  “Those parties chose to conceal a bite or a scratch wound, and were discovered upon inspection on board. They knew they were going to turn, but they came aboard anyway. So, they were … dealt with.”

  Yep. Not unexpected at all. The Liverpool had proven that an isolated community had to take those precautions. It was the only way to stem the infection.

  It occurred to me that the ship might have some sort of intelligence on the cause of the outbreak. Although we knew, I wondered if the remnants of power and authority had any idea of the culprits, or the actual physical cause. It was a natural question to ask, so I didn’t hesitate.

  “Any information on what started this whole mess?” I asked.

  He looked up briefly as he wrote, face slightly incredulous, but not at all hesitant.

  “Turns out this whole thing was started by bottled water, can you believe that? We’ve got hundreds of folks sending confirmed reports of bottled water being infected. Tricky, I’ll say that for the terrorists. Only way to get it out to a lot of people, in a lot of places, fast. Apparently, the virus turns you faster if you drink it from the bottle—some sort of bioengineering to accelerate the infection. But once it starts spreading by bite, the first few bites from an infected person are the fastest to spread. After that, it depends on the bitten person’s body. They still turn, but lots of other factors come into play, like metabolism and bite location.”

  He began to write again, then stood up, walking toward his small desk in the corner, which was neatly stacked with folders and small clear vials.

  So Kopland had engineered the damn thing to spread fast from the initial infection, had he? Clever bastard. He had known that a slow moving virus might be contained, but a fast mover, dispersed through airplanes and trains and gas stations ... damn near impossible.

  Cowell looked up from his desk to where I still sat, staring at nothing. He glanced at the door dismissively.

  “
Thank you for seeing me, Mike. If you’ll touch base with Commander Vincent on your way to your quarters, I think you’ll find that the Captain would like to debrief you.” He smiled briefly, as if telling a joke for which only he knew the punch line.

  “No problem Doc. Thanks.” I followed Kate out the door and deeper into the belly of the giant ship.

  Up four flights of stairs and after what seemed like another mile of steel tunnels, we met briefly with the Commander, who served as the executive officer on board. After a perfunctory introduction, he scheduled us for a meeting in thirty minutes with Captain Walter Allred on the bridge. Apparently the Captain didn’t leave the bridge much these days, and I was happy to oblige. In all my movies, one of my favorites had been filmed partially on board an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson.

  Although the Carl Vinson was smaller than the Enterprise, it was just as enthralling to watch airplanes literally catapulted from the deck, and feel the rush and rumble of a floating city underneath your feet.

  I was also anxious for news. Unfortunately, Commander Vincent was pleasant, but not very forthcoming.

  “Can you tell us anything about what’s going on,” I asked, staring at one television monitor in his office that was surprisingly turned off. “I mean, are stations still transmitting?”

  “No can say, sir,” he replied as he ushered us out after quickly assigning us a time. Like I said, perfunctory.

  “But, how …”

  “Captain will tell you what you need to know. Thank you for seeing me.” He closed the door behind us.

  I turned to Kate, “Nice fellow.”