The explosions blossomed like a flower, filling the darkling dawn with xanthic heat and vermilion light, and fire, and fury. One was near, one was far.
“What the fuck!?” Lt. Colonel Adam Kaplan yelled. “What was that?” The aftershock of the explosion’s light kept flashing in his eyes. He turned to the pilot seated beside him—Airman Steve Wolowitz.
One of the Privates in back spoke up. “A bomb, sir. An atom bomb.”
“They just nuked Tonevay,” someone else said.
Wolowitz shook his head. “I… I…” but the airman’s answer to the Lt. Colonel’s question ended in a wordless groan.
Everyone was at a loss for words. Calling it “madness” didn’t do the situation justice. The way Lt. Colonel Kaplan’s superiors had explained it the day before yesterday, their deployment to Elpeck was a peacekeeping mission, to help the sprawling city’s municipal government maintain law and order in the face of the pandemic. That’s what he’d been expecting. Instead, what he got was reality playing like a video game gone wrong.
“I wasn’t asking about that!” he snapped. “I want to know what the fuck the missile just hit!”
Really, what Lt. Colonel Kaplan wanted was clarification, because what he had seen—a man with a tail flying through the air like something out of a Primo superhero movie—didn’t make a lick of sense. It couldn’t be real.
Could it?
It certainly had been there when he’d pressed the button to launch the incendiary missile at it, and there wasn’t anything left—nothing that Lt. Colonel Kaplan could see.
The falling cloud quickly passed behind them as Wolowitz piloted the aerostat forward. The aircraft shook from the subtle vibrations coming off its engines.
Kaplan surveyed the street ahead.
Below, the convoy was well on its way. Kaplan was no stranger to escort missions—he’d once had the dubious honor of flying alongside the Chief Minister’s aerostat—but he’d never have guessed he’d be leading one through the heart of Elpeck. Granted, as far the Green Death was concerned, that fuckery was just par for the course.
Even the Internet wasn’t safe anymore. The stories circulating there, the footage, the news; tales of men turning into serpents or zombies or zombie-serpents or serpent-zombies or whatever the fuck was happening to the world… it was enough to give a man nightmares—and it had. Lt. Colonel Kaplan hadn’t slept well these past few days.
Then again, who had?
He’d spent an hour lost in Divulgence and prayer in the chapel at Fort Marteneiss, sneaking in after the priests had finished the day’s Unction, hoping to steady his spirit. Anyone with eyes could tell a darkness was spreading over the earth. By a caprice of fate, he’d had a nasty argument with Evvy—his girlfriend—a couple nights before the pandemic hit, and by the time he thought to call to check in, she wasn’t answering her videophone —not to him, not to her sister, not to her parents. Nobody.
Kaplan assumed the worst, and blamed himself for it. He couldn’t think of a better way to atone than volunteering for this mission, escort and all.
His country needed him.
Thankfully, he wasn’t alone. He had his team, and the other teams, as well—a mighty handful of aerostats, flying escort.
One of the Privates spoke up. “Why nuke Tonevay? Elpeck is the biggest city in the country.” He coughed. “Bigger city, more zombies. Shouldn’t we be bombing Elpeck halfway to Paradise by now?”
No one said a thing in response. Instead, they exchanged several silent stares. Kaplan was pretty sure they all knew the answer; it was just that none of them had the balls to say it.
If you nuke Elpeck, it’s game over, he thought.
Once you bombed Elpeck, there was no point in holding back. You’d have to nuke every major city in the country. There’d be no justification for doing anything less, and when that happened, what was left of command hierarchy—civilian, military would crumble. There’d be nothing left to save.
“You can’t nuke the City of God,” someone grumbled.
“I guess that makes sense,” Lt. Colonel Kaplan muttered.
Wolowitz snorted and coughed. “What can you do?”
Kaplan knew the answer to that question. All you could do was set up cordons and safe-zones, and blow up a few of the bridges over the Bay. Unfortunately, with the exception of bombing the bridges, most of those tasks had quickly turned out to be far more of a challenge than anyone would have guessed. The pandemic had unleashed the mother of all SNAFUs. Panic was rampant, and with panic came chaos—rioting, looting, arson, anarchy. It was fucked up, and no one with half a brain wanted to deal with it—and that was before you added the fungus into the mix and sent everything to hell.
Lt. Colonel Kaplan shuddered.
The infected were growing out of control. They ran through the streets and crawled inside buildings, attacking people wherever they went. They were legit zombies, spreading havoc and spores in equal proportion.
“We should be getting visual contact with West Elpeck Medical any moment now,” one of the Privates said.
Yeah, Lt. Colonel Kaplan thought, can’t forget about that.
The first part of the mission was to escort the convoy to the safe-zone: West Elpeck Medical Center. A freakin’ hospital.
When he’d first heard that, Kaplan had thought his commanding officers had lost their marbles. But there was a method to the madness. Even without the “big” reason, the hospital was in a surprisingly defensible position: WeElMed had the equipment needed to maintain a sterile environment, and the hospital complex’s position in the city’s urban maze was a blessing from the Beast Itself. But that’s what happened when you turned the headquarters of the Second Crusade into a medical institution.
Of course, none of that explained why there was any sense in taking people toward the plague, rather than away from it. But that was another matter altogether.
For tactical purposes, the hospital complex was essentially ring-shaped. WeElMed’s central hub wrapped around the grand old garden courtyard—the Central Gardens—over a city block in size. The place enjoyed natural protections, wedged as it was between the Daum River to the north and Crusader Hill to the south. Merchant Boulevard was the only wide street that had direct access to the hospital, emerging from the Crusader Hill Tunnel to the south and weaving its way to the old Daum Drawbridge up north. The drawbridge still worked, and—at a glance—was currently in its upright position, blocking travel access to that portion of the river. Meanwhile, the ritzy old brownstones and townhouses on the slopes of Crusader Hill were fortifications in all but name. No roads went across the hill in the north-south direction. If you wanted to go that way, you either had to go around the damn thing, or follow Merchant Boulevard through the Tunnel. As for east-west access, though there were more streets in the direction which hooked up with WeElMed, none of them were on par with Merchant Boulevard. They were narrow enough that you could block passage with a single, well-placed bus.
The convoy was approaching the hospital from the south. They’d be home free once they were through the Crusader Hill Tunnel.
Below, a mix of military and civilian transports drove down Merchant Boulevard. The dark, angular military transports led the way, their shining headlights blazing into the pre-dawn gloom. From their position at the head of the convoy—in front of and behind the civilian buses—the transports’ monstrous engines and devouring wheels would crush or clear away any abandoned automobiles in their way.
Lt. Colonel Kaplan saw figures rapidly scrabble toward one of the buses.
A crowd of feral infected.
The Lt. Colonel’s features tensed beneath his mask and helmet. “Steve,” he yelled, “angle her down!”
Wolowitz bore down on the flight controls. The aerostat lurched. Even from within the thickly armored hull, Lt. Colonel Kaplan could hear the rear turbines roar as the aerostat tilted downward. g-forces pushed him up against the back of his seat. Kaplan tightened his grip on the aerostat’s armament controls. Then, aiming the joystick, he pulled the trigger.
Bullets sprayed onto the crowd of infected down below. Car windows shattered, raining their glass onto the street. The bodies of the infected popped as the bullets hit them, spewing black and green along as they collapsed into kibbles. Wind caught the wisps of spores, whisking them down the street.
Two other aerostats ran parallel strafes against the zombies, taking out a handful that spilled out from one of the adjacent brownstone apartments.
Dammit!, Kaplan thought.
There were still more of them!
“Pull back!” he said.
The crossed-X seat-belts dug into his chest as Wolowitz made the aerostat drift backward, in preparation for another strafing maneuver.
“Sir!” one of the privates yelped.
“I got ‘em,” Kaplan said. “I got ‘em.”
And then he aimed and fired and made his words true.
They had to neutralize the feral infected—a.k.a., zombies—before they got too close to the vehicles. You didn’t want a concentrated burst of spores anywhere near anything important. The 6th and 7th Battalions had already learned the hard way that the spores could eat through a vehicle’s chassis in a matter of minutes unless someone was crazy enough to jump out and wash it off before the damage was irreparable.
The zombies splattered beneath the hail of bullets. Splotches of spores hissed as they ate into the pavement, sending up trails of smoke and steam that glinted in the street-lamps’ light.
The convoy rolled on by, their wheels passing within feet of the spore puddles.
“Alright, flatten her out,” Kaplan said.
Airman Wolowitz complied, groaning with misery.
Lt. Colonel Kaplan glanced at his pilot. “Steve,” he asked, “are you alright?”
It was hard to see Steve beneath all the equipment. The digital HUD on the inner surface of their helmets obscured the upper half of their faces, and the mask attachment fitted below that covered up the rest.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Still, from what he could see.
Shit, Kaplan thought.
The Airman groaned again. “No, Sir, but somebody’s gotta fly this thing.”
Wolowitz had seemed fine a couple hours ago.
Or maybe he hadn’t, and I just didn’t notice, Kaplan thought.
“Praise the Angel,” one of the Privates said, “it looks like they’re home free!”
Lt. Colonel Kaplan leaned back into his seat, sighing with relief.
Suddenly, a lone aerostat rocketed past them, screaming through the squadron like a motorist gone mad.
“Fucking hell!” the Lt. Colonel cursed.
Wolowitz coughed as he steered their aerostat out of the way and adjusted its course. He leaned forward. “Is that one of ours?”
Lt. Colonel Kaplan scoffed. “Not on your life.”
The aircraft in question was gaudy as fuck, tie-dyed in pulsing, psychedelic rainbows, with the words BJ Records emblazoned on its sides in neon letters.
Wolowitz pushed the comms. “Flight l-leader, there’s…” but his words trailed off.
Kaplan leaned over and yelled into the comms. “Watch your six! There’s a madman comin’ through. Make way!”
The other aerostats adjusted their positions, flying out of the way of the garish aircraft.
“There!” One of the privates in the cabin in the back shouted. “I see it!There’s the medical center.”
The kid was right. WeElMed was coming into view, there, over the next ridge of old rooftops. The rest of the city was going to shit, but the hospital was still a hive of activity.
Color me impressed, Kaplan thought.
“Take us in, Steve,” he said, with a nod.
The aerostat powered forward, engines roaring as it surged ahead of the convoy.
Down below, WeElMed’s Central Gardens were a maze of cordon lines and makeshift walls, filled with a sea of people and tarpaulin tents. As the mission briefing had explained, the tents came in two colors: black for military, white for medical. The hospital was doing triage out in the open, to save space for helping victims.
A couple of tanks had rolled in, positioned with their barrels of their guns facing south on Merchant Boulevard, and as well as some of the narrow streets flanking the Central Gardens to the east and west.
“Why the fuck are we setting up shop at a hospital filled with the infected?” a private asked.
That was the billion-groat question. Fortunately, Lt. Colonel Kaplan had a billion-groat answer for it.
“They don’t have zombies,” he said.
“What?”
“You know the zombies?” he said. “The ones we nuked Tonevay to stop? The ones that made mincemeat outta the 6th and 7th Battalions? The hospital doesn’t have them. Everywhere else, people are turning feral, but not here. And we’re gonna figure out why.”
“They’ve also got a big matter printer operation, down in one of their basements,” another Private added. “They’ve got matter printers going at almost an industrial scale; it’s the biggest set-up of its kind this close to the city center.”
Lt. Colonel Kaplan nodded. “If push comes to shove, we can use them to cannibalize and recycle ammunition, equipment, or even entire vehicles.” He surveyed the city as Wolowitz began bringing them in to land. “And, Beast’s Balls, the push has come to shove.”
What Kaplan didn’t tell them, however, was that there was another reason they were headed to the hospital, a reason known only to him and his superiors.
Unlike the other aerostats, Kaplan and his crew had been tasked with more than just an escort mission. Intelligence reported an aerobus of refugees had made it out of Stovolsk, only to make an emergency landing out in the Bay. After getting fished out of the water in the dead of Night by what was left of the Trenton Coast Guard, it turned out the aerobus had a package on board, one of the highest priority, meant to be delivered to WeElMed ASAP. It was all very hush-hush; neither Steve nor any of the Privates knew about it, and it was Kaplan’s duty to get the package to the hospital safe and sound.
His commanding officers hadn’t needed to tell him how important it was. Kaplan had gotten to feel that importance for himself once he got ahold of it. The package was a beaten black plastic case. Just looking at it—at the dents and the stains—it was clear to him that someone had gone to great lengths to get it out of Odensk and over the Riscolts. He didn’t dare dream about what it was or what it might do. He just prayed. He didn’t know what a cure to the Green Death looked like—or if there even was such a thing—but, if it looked like anything, it looked like that rugged little plastic case.
Kaplan’s chest tensed.
Fuck.
Below, another crowd of infected hobbled into the Lt. Colonel’s view. They were coming out of the south side of Crusader Hill Tunnel. Kaplan nearly slammed his fist onto the control panel.
This was an ambush!
It was as if the fungus was deliberately attacking military forces.
Kaplan turned the comms back on. “Convoy, watch out for the tunnel! There are bogies.” He turned to Steve. “C’mon, take us in, we can—”
There was a soft, sliding noise—fabric rubbing against fabric—as Airman Wolowitz fell to the side, out of his seat, passing into unconsciousness.
Alarms blared. The aerostat wobbled. Its hull began to shake.
Kaplan didn’t waste time trying to rouse Wolowitz. Snapping off his seat-belts as fast as he could, Kaplan lunged over Steve’s unconscious body and grabbed hold of the controls.
The joystick rumbled in his hands as the aerostat yawed and lurched.
It’d been years since he’d last flown an aerostat.
“Uh, Four-Niner,” said the comms, “is your pilot drunk?”
“No,” Kaplan groaned, “just feverish and unconscious.”
“Shit.”
“You’re telling me!” he replied.
Another voice chimed in. “It’s alright, we got it.”
An aerostat descended. Hovering low to the ground, in front of the tunnel’s maw, it faced the infected horde let loose spraying streams of white-hot lead.
“—Uh, air support,” a voice asked, “why has Convoy Leader stopped?”
Looking up at the display screen that displayed the feed from the aerostat’s rear-view camera, Kaplan saw that the armored transport at the front of the convoy had stopped in its tracks, causing a line of buses to ground to a halt right behind it, waiting nervously.
A voice spoke from the comms: “They’re not responding to comms!”
Best case scenario, they just needed to be taken into the hospital like Airman Wolowitz. Worse cast scenario?
More dead soldiers.
Kaplan tensed.
Immediately, an argument broke out. Soldiers’ voices bickered on the comms over who would get out and deal with the lead vehicle. The fear in their voices was palpable, and perfectly justified.
Kaplan leaned toward the comms. “Once I deliver the package to the hospital, I’ll man the damn transport, myself.”
He looked back over his shoulder. “Private Michaels?”
“Yes sir?”
“When we land, you make sure Wolowitz gets taken to a doctor, ASAP.”
“Yes sir!”
“Now, I just need to land this son-of-a-bitch,” Kaplan said, muttering under his breath.
Then a voice screamed over the comms: “What the fuck is tha—”
—It cut off in a brush of static.
Something like a flying snake had bolted at one of the other aerostats. The aircraft seemed to get ripped and blown apart as the monster flew into it, but everything was soon lost in a fiery explosion. Debris shot out in every direction. The only warning the Lt. Colonel got before a severed engine from the wreckage hurtled into the side of the aerostat was a split-second image on the feed from the side-view camera.
Kaplan grappled the joystick and control panel as the aerostat shook from the impact. Aside, voices yelled. Outside, bullets flew.
One of the engine indicators on the control panel flashed red. Alarms shrieked in the cockpit. More lights flashed as other alarms lit up along the control panel, turning the shriek into a chorus.
“We’re going down!” Kaplan yelled.
The Lt. Colonel watched the serpent-creature zip up into the sky as the world began to spin. Flak and smoke from the explosion eddied around the creature, only for it to zoom off, as if whipped away by an invisible hand. Further up, in the depths of the clouds overhead, Kaplan thought he saw something flash bright red. A mix of sounds rumbled through the comms, some like a choir, others like high-pitched thunder.
Lt. Colonel Kaplan wrestled with the joystick, vying for control as the aerostat descended in a wide, lazy circle. The three turbines that still functioned screamed out thrust as the aerostat’s AI tried to calm the aircraft’s path as best as it could.
Below, the Gardens loomed large as the descent slowed.
But not enough.
“Brace for impact!” he yelled.
The aerostat landed on the old drive’s scalloped pavement with a snap and a shudder. Metal screamed against stone; everything shook as the aircraft literally ground to a halt. The gaudy BJ Records’ aerostat had parked in front of the wall of WeElMed’s main old building, and it made for an excellent pillow for the impact. It didn’t break; it just got a little… dented.
Lt. Colonel Kaplan picked up the plastic case with one hand as he pulled his rifle out its holder on the wall with the other. “C’mon people,” he said, “let’s move.”
— — —
Andalon rolled across on the table, back and forth and back and forth.
She screamed.
“It hurts! It hurts!”
“—What hurts, Andalon?” I said. “Please, use your words!”
“They’re hurtin’ the wyrmehs! They’re hurtin’… everything! The wyrmehs are a-scared and sad and mad and—”
—Without a moment to lose, I leaned forward, picked up Andalon, and lifted her into a hug. The two of us toppled back onto the stool and into the wall, but I managed to stop us from falling all the way down with a helping hand of psychokinetic force, whipped up from memory. It left me in a seated position, floating several inches above the ground, as if riding a rocking chair made of clouds.
I held her against my chest. “Focus on me, Andalon. Listen to the sound of my voice.”
Her body was as ice-cold as ever. Her pale, spectral nightgown was phasing through the sleeves of my hazmat suit’s sleeves. The fear she felt was palpable, as was the pain.
More explosions tore through the sky. Passing aerostat turbines jostled the windows in their sills. A great commotion riled the SHG, but I ignored it.
Right now, my whole world was the little girl in my arms.
“M-Mr. Genneth?” In between her sobs, she sputtered.
“Focus on me,” I told her. “Focus on the here and now.”
“Holy Angel,” someone said, waving around their console. “There are military aerostats in the Garden Court!”
“They come here now, of all times? What took them so long?”
But I ignored them. All I saw as Andalon.
A piece of God was crying.
Rising to my feet, I used my powers to steady myself as I rocked Andalon back and forth as gently as I could.
I looked down at Andalon. “Forget about all the other stuff,” I said. “You’re safe with me. You’re safe here. No one is hurting you here.”
“Hell,” someone said, “there are soldiers too! It looks like they’re headed for the Crusader Hill Tunnel.”
“Genneth?”
I recognized Nurse Costran’s voice.
“I’m a little busy right now!” I said, briefly glancing off to the side.
Andalon twitched in my grasp. Every bullet made her yelp and wince. Her breaths were raggedy wheezes. It was like she was drowning in my arms.
Oh no.
I recognized that sound. She was hyperventilating, just like I used to as a kid, when I was still getting used to a life filled with panic attacks.
Lifting the toppled stool upright with a bit of psychokinesis, I set Andalon down on the stool, and, hunching over, grabbed her by the shoulders as gently as I could. I looked deep into her stormy, blue eyes.
“Pay attention, Andalon,” I said. “Do what I’m doing.” I drew out my words, as if in slow motion. “Slowwwww. Dowwwwn. Breathe in… and out. Slowwwwly. Breathe in…” I made a show of taking deep, concerted breaths. “…and out. And close your eyes.”
“Focus on the sound of my voice,” I said. “Don’t pay attention to any other sounds.”
Andalon did as I did, and it helped. With her eyes closed, her breathing stabilized.
She complied. To help, I tried emptying my thoughts of everything I’d seen. I tried to ignore what was going on outside as best I could. I knew Andalon had some degree of access to my senses: seeing what I saw; hearing what I heard. If the sounds of war were frightening her, I just needed to push them out of my thoughts. For added benefit, I hummed a passage from my Clarinet Sonata, hoping it might calm her.
I noticed a faint aura briefly glow around her—an outline of gentle light, all across the edge of her profile.
“Praise the Sun!” I muttered.
It was working!
I figured the glowing was a good thing.
A good thirty seconds of careful breathing, humming, and concerted thought-emptying pulled Andalon out of her panicked state. The terror had fled from her eyes, and its place was pain and sorrow. She mumbled as she quietly wept, asking questions like, “Why are they being mean?” and, “why are they hurting me?”, and all while keeping her eyes tightly shut.
Sitting up straight—biting my lip—I decided it was time to bring out the big guns. I conjured up an object from memory. It formed in my hand, a hyperphantasized hallucination perceptible only to me and Andalon. It was a great big, fuzzy hallucination, one that had made her giggle and smile once before. With any luck, it would do so once more.
“Andalon, look,” I said, lifting the weightless hallucination up to her.
The hyperphantasy was none other than the giant hummingbird plushie I’d gotten her on our trip to the Aquarium with the Plotskies.
Andalon’s mouth dropped open the instant she saw it.
Tears swirled in her eyes. Her voice broke. “Mr. Humby!”
Andalon threw herself onto the blob-shaped stuffed animal, wrapping her arms around it. She and it phased right through my chest, toppling onto the floor behind me. Thankfully, the doll was slightly larger than Andalon, enough to break her fall. I turned around to see her burying her tears in its fuzzy greens, whites, and reds.
After a while, I conjured another goodie. I got her attention by tapping my finger on her shoulder while holding it in my other hand. Item #2 was another keepsake from our Aquarium adventure: an unspillable, ever-refilling mug of fruit slushie, complete with a plastic bendy straw.
“I got you your favorite drink,” I said.
Andalon turned around, and her puffy blue eyes widened as she saw the mug. Immediately, she grabbed it and loudly slurped it up.
Our eyes met.
“What do you say?” I said, prompting her.
Andalon removed her mouth from the straw and took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said, softly.
Then she started crying again, only this time, it was tears of joy. Dropping the cup to the floor (which did not spill), Andalon walked up to me and hugged me much like Mr. Humby, only this time, no one got knocked over.
Outside, the sounds of combat grew fainter and less frequent. But then I was startled by the sudden sound of my console vibrating in the pocket on the stomach of my hazmat suit. Pulling away from Andalon, I yanked my PortaCon out of the pocket and answered the incoming videophone call.
My console screen was a window into chaos, and the Hall of Echoes, and in the middle of it was Dr. Marteneiss’s face, glaring at me.
“Genneth,” she yelled, “get down here! Now!”
Well, fudge.