Tooth And Nail Part 23

Right now, outside these walls, there is no local government. No food distribution. No medicine. There are almost no firefighters putting out fires. Only a handful of police offers are still doing their duty. Many of the hospitals have been abandoned, like this one. It's fast becoming the law of the jungle out there.

There is a reason for this.

Warlord has suffered major losses as well. Captain West and his headquarters staff are MIA and presumed dead. Colonel Armstrong is dead, and so is the Battalion XO, Major Reynolds. Captain Lyons of Alpha is taking over Battalion.

Gentlemen, be quiet. There's more.

As you know, I have been placed in command of Charlie. I have received new orders directly from Brigade. All units in our AO have been ordered to consolidate into the next highest level at an easily defensible location. This means Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta Companies are going to concentrate and reconst.i.tute Warlord. Quarantine wants Battalion squared away until he needs us.

These orders make sense. They are also simple as far as we're concerned because our current position is the rendezvous point. Everybody is coming to us. All we have to do is wait. A citywide curfew is going into effect at seventeen hundred hours. By eighteen hundred, the Battalion should be reconst.i.tuted under Captain Lyons.

Now it's time to tell you the real problem that is behind all this. What I have to say may shock you, but at this point probably will not surprise you.

At first, we were told that Mad Dog syndrome is common only in the most severe cases of Lyssa, where the virus attacks the brain. Turns out this is wrong. Turns out the Mad Dogs apparently carry an entirely different strain of the virus in their saliva. When they bite people, those people become Mad Dogs.

In fact, once bitten, they can become a Mad Dog within hours. Gentlemen, be quiet.

Gentlemen- Thank you, Sergeant.

The number of Mad Dogs is increasing at a rate that we cannot understand. We have seen with our own eyes that they are dramatically growing in numbers and that they attack and seek to infect, without fear or mercy, any non-infected person that they see. The level of threat is increasing by the minute and will increase until the Mad Dogs are either all dead or they exhaust the supply of people they can infect.

Now you know why we have no choice but to concentrate Battalion or cease to be in the game helping America get through this crisis. Gentlemen, I am not kidding when I say that we are fighting for the survival of our country. Possibly the human race.

The situation is unprecedented.

All right, listen up.

Things have changed, and we need to adapt.

First, there will be no more talk of "baby killers." If you think the Mad Dogs are still people, your sentimentality is going to get you and the man next to you killed. Mad Dogs are not people anymore. They are puppets controlled by the Mad Dog virus. The virus tells them to attack and infect, and they do it. These people probably have no knowledge of who they are, what they are, or what they're doing.

And if they do know, but have no choice, then G.o.d help them. Either way, if you kill a Mad Dog, it is a mercy killing. It's that simple.

Mad Dogs do not carry weapons and they look like you and me, but do not let appearances fool you. These things are the deadliest foe that America has ever faced and the most dangerous enemy you will ever meet in combat.

There will be a lot more killing. We are in a hostile country, surrounded by a hostile army, close to being cut off from resupply and medevac, and the enemy is hunting us in a war of extermination, fighting us using tactics against which we never trained.

This is an enemy that does not take prisoners. That does not negotiate. That requires no supply, knows no fear, and attacks relentlessly. The virus does not fight for land or money or politics or religion. It fights to survive by infecting, or killing, all of us.

I am telling you this so you can get your head on straight. If you want to stay alive, you're going to have to get some fight in your gut and see this situation for what it is.

A war with unlimited spectrum. Total war.

It's us or them, gentlemen. These are the facts on the ground.

Right now, you are probably getting very worried about your loved ones. I have family in Texas, some in Louisiana, who I think about every day. But I can't get to them. I'd never make it. If I walked out that door, I'd be dead, or a Mad Dog, within twenty-four hours.

If you want to help your family, then do your job.

Somebody has to survive this.

Civilian law enforcement is being wiped out. That leaves us. We're all that's left between a rising tide of Mad Dogs and annihilation. So your family's only hope, our country's only hope, is that the Army stays together long enough to make a difference. From now on, once a unit is destroyed, it cannot be replaced. It's gone.

One of you asked me if this is the end of the world. My answer was not a very good one. I thought of a new answer, and I like it better.

Whether the world is going to end or not is literally up to us.

As for me, gentlemen, I say it's not.

Chapter 9.

They do not deserve to take it all from us The sun is s.h.i.+ning and the streets are jammed with people enjoying the end of summer. In Central Park, hundreds lie on blankets in Sheep Meadow, sleeping or reading. Several boys with their s.h.i.+rts off throw an orange Frisbee back and forth, while a dog playfully barks and scampers between them. Christopher sits on a bench bouncing Alexander on his knee. They both smile eagerly as she approaches them barefoot and laughing. Alexander demands ice cream. Valeriya Petrova suggests a ride on the Merry-Go-Round instead and he shouts for joy before realizing he's been fooled, suddenly declaring his interest in both ice cream and a ride.

What flavor, Alex? Christopher asks.

Alexander looks up at his father and cries exultantly: Vanilla!

Her eyes flicker to Christopher, deliciously aware that he is unaware of being watched, and knows they are getting older every day and that some day they will die and there will be nothing and they will never be together like this again. Instead of making her sad, the thought fills her with a strange elation that she is alive and not dead, that she still has time, that they all have time, before even just this single perfect day ends. And her son has even longer and all the world lies before him.

Tonight she will make love to her husband and whisper thank you in his ear as she does at times when she feels like this, when she cannot contain the beauty of her life and the joy her family brings her.

Harsh white light shatters the darkness.

The building groans to life as its systems reboot.

Petrova lies under the desk, s.h.i.+vering with her eyes clenched shut. You must get up, she tells herself. You must not give up. You must survive for them.

No, stay and dream a little while longer. Maybe the dream is true. Maybe, outside, the world has returned to normal. People in the park, laughing and playing. Lying on the warm gra.s.s, reading a paperback- No- Outside, she knows, the world is dying.

Everybody she has ever known, everybody she has ever loved, everything she cherished as part of life, is being destroyed.

She knows that she is probably going to die here without ever seeing the sun again. Without ever seeing her son again.

So far away.

Mankind will not cross the Atlantic again for perhaps hundreds of years. London may as well be on another planet. Within a generation, even the word "London" may cease to be generally remembered in North America. Knowledge that there are other continents at all may slowly be forgotten as future generations struggle to survive.

All this because a tiny little biological machine simply wants to live. If the virus could think and speak, it would say it has a right to try to multiply, to fight for dominance, to survive. Survival, in fact, is the virus' sole purpose. It is designed to survive. That is what makes it so strong. It was virtually the first form of life on the planet, and it will be the last.

But it is not better than us, she thinks. Stronger, maybe. But not better. Can a virus make its human puppets paint a sunset, for example, that reflects the soul of the real thing? Possessing mind but not thought, does it understand the concept of science, progress, the betterment of the species? Has it ever looked up with its borrowed eyes at the stars and wonder if there are other planets that can support life, perhaps life it can talk to? Can it understand charity or love or empathy or mercy? Has a Mad Dog, roaming the streets feverishly searching for a new host, ever felt anything in its extremely short life span beyond a toxic level of pain and rage?

They do not deserve to take it all from us. They are just machines. Living software. They will kill everyone and destroy everything, only to die off themselves and disappear as fast as they came, leaving despair and ruin behind. And this security equipment and all the other human machines will simply lie here rotting for years under layers of dust, perhaps to be picked up generations later by uncomprehending descendants.

It is unfair- A sudden burst of anger gives her just enough strength to move her hand.

With great effort, she reaches across the carpet. Her body follows, as slow as a snail, but as determined. Fear weighs down on her with its own special gravity, and she wonders if she will make it. But soon she is standing, looking into the security screens, where she sees Sandy Cohen lying broken on the floor outside.

Dead.

We are just meat to them, she thinks. They consume us and throw away the wrapper.

Even the air feels heavy in her lungs.

If you do not want to die here, get busy doing something else, she tells herself.

Her eyes flicker to a pack of cigarettes on the desk. Jackson was a smoker. Petrova quit four years ago, before she got pregnant with Alexander. Has not touched one since.

Just one, she decides. To help me think.

Petrova ignites the tip of the cigarette and inhales deeply, feeling guilty about it in part, strangely, because she is doing it in a public place. In more ways than one, ingrained habits die hard. She coughs. She inhales again and does not cough. Like riding a bike. Within moments, the head rush a.s.sails her brain.

So much for quitting, she thinks. It was agony to quit, and she is throwing it all away for three quarters of a pack of Marlboro Lights. And not even menthol, which she prefers. On the other hand, between the epidemic and the Mad Dogs, she doubts she is going to see an abundance of cigarettes anywhere anytime soon. Perhaps forever.

She suddenly realizes that she does not have much time. The power might go out again, and if it stays off, she will have no way to survive.

She begins to take stock of her surroundings. Most of the desk drawers are stuffed with paper records, logs, office supplies and old manuals. The bottom desk drawer contains a half-full quart bottle of whiskey, an almost full carton of cigarettes, a condom, a heavily dog-eared copy of Juggs, a package of salted peanuts, and a clipboard holding some sort of training schedule. She removes the peanuts and devours them greedily.

Lovely, she thinks. The only things I have lots of are cigarettes and p.o.r.nography.

One of the storage bins holds flashlights, which she removes, tests and sets aside.

But no guns or other weapons. Petrova knows that the security staff carries at least a billy club and a TASER, but Jackson either has these items on him, lost them during the fight with Baird, or discarded them afterwards. That just leaves her golf club, next to which she places a small steel fire extinguisher and a box cutter tool.

Petrova finds the bathroom adjacent to this main room and uses it, smoking a second cigarette on the toilet with the door open and the light off. For a few moments, the smoking dampens her hunger.

She snaps her fingers, stands up and flushes. Pausing at the sink, trying not to look at herself in the mirror, she hurriedly washes her face and hands, and dries them with paper towels. Then she goes back to the operator station.

The security system, she realized, must include a way to prevent the migration of airborne microbes and toxins in the event of an emergency.

After several minutes, Petrova shuts off the HVAC system with a primitive cry of triumph. Instantly, the air-conditioning stops breathing ice over her skin. Soon, the air will get stale, but at least she won't be freezing anymore.

This small act of control gives her a sense of optimism and fuels her courage.

"I am very sorry, Sandy," she says to the screen, then flips the image.

To get out of here, she must either escape or be rescued.

Don't look behind you

Marsha Fuentes lies twitching and wincing on the floor in one of the aisles in the auditorium. Lucas is in the elevator lobby, blinking and sniffing the air. Saunders is in Laboratory West, pacing back and forth. Stringer Jackson is still standing at the mirror, rocking back and forth, his ruined eye weeping mucus. Drool dribbles from his lips.

He has turned.

Down in the lobby, the beautiful blonde appears to be arguing with some of the men in her mob. She holds a pistol in her hand, which she taps against her leg as she talks. The people down there have figured out that when the Inst.i.tute went into lockdown, not only was the lab sealed, so was the entire building. They are upset about it.

Behind the woman, Petrova can see a group of people lying on the floor in the corner. Lyssa victims. Some of the mob are sick and getting sicker. But none of them appear to be going Mad Dog. At least, not yet. She reminds herself that with standard airborne Lyssa, the odds are very low.

The woman is now waving the pistol over her head and pointing at the sick people. The men walk away sheepishly.

Reluctantly, Petrova tears her eyes from the screen. If she is going to be rescued, she has to act fast. She gathers up the fire extinguisher, which she intends to use as a missile, and her golf club. The box cutter she puts in her pocket as a weapon of last resort. She takes a deep breath in front of the door, hesitating.

It is either this, or get back under the desk.

She takes off her shoes to make less noise while she walks, opens the door and gingerly steps outside.

The hallway is empty, except for the bodies, and dead silent. She hurries past Sandy Cohen, who lies like a marionette with her strings cut, her limbs at odd angles and her grinning head facing the wrong way. Further down, she scurries past Baird's body, lying on its side like a downed bull. Footsteps echo down distant hallways.

Turning the corner, she creeps up to the bathroom where Sims still lies on the floor, his stiff body propping open the door. Stringer Jackson is inside.

Now for the hard part.

She darts by the open door, willing herself not to be noticed. Immediately, Jackson begins snarling.

"Oh d.a.m.n," she says, breaking into a run.

Behind her, the door is flung open, slamming against the wall with a loud bang, and Jackson spills out of the bathroom snorting and growling, stumbling over Sims' body.

Petrova looks over her shoulder, slowing down, and sees Jackson recover and begin loping towards her, his eye leaking yellowish-green sludge, bellowing a nasal ka ka ka sound through slavering jaws.

As a scientist, she knows all sorts of facts about the human body. For example, she knows that human jaws, clamping down to bite, can exert more than four thousand pounds per square inch.

Moments later, she comes to a sliding halt in front of her office. Slipping in, she slams the door, locks it and puts her weight against it, praying for it to hold.

But Jackson does not try to break the door down. Instead, he begins growling and pacing. She can hear him sniff at the air, sensing that she is there. She is trapped again, and this time, she has no access to the security system.

Petrova puts down the golf club and fire extinguisher and sits at her desk. The act is so familiar to her that for a moment, she feels like everything is back to normal. Her PC's screensaver displays a screen-sized image of her, Christopher and Alexander looking up at the camera, grinning. Christopher took the photo himself, holding the camera at arm's length over their heads. Alexander, held in Petrova's arms, is reaching up towards the lens. The photo was snapped with a digital camera near the end of a perfect day in Central Park. The image holds her, transfixed, for several moments.

Jackson shoulders the door during his pacing, startling her.

Time to get to work. She picks up the phone, which blares a loud rat-tat-tat signal. Same with the handset to her fax. A wave of sweat breaks out on her forehead and armpits. Her first dead end.

She opens her hard drive and tests her connection to the email server, which appears to be working, giving her a connection to the outside world.

Smiling now, she opens the secure FTP site the CDC set up for them to share their work. It is also operational. She grabs everything she can find related to her discoveries, doing a broad data sweep, and dumps it all onto the server.