Ex-Patriots (18 page)

Sorensen had a single scoop of scrambled eggs
on his plate. He pushed them back and forth with the fork, still in
slow motion. Every third or fourth push one of the tines would
scrape like fingernails on a chalkboard. Barry glanced from the
doctor to the colonel. The officer didn’t seem to register the
older man’s behavior.

“How long did it take you to get out here,
Mr. Burke?” Colonel Shelly asked after a few minutes of eating.
“You caused a sonic boom, didn’t you?”

“About twenty minutes,” said Barry. He
crunched down on another piece of bacon and let it sit on his
tongue for a moment. “The sonic boom’s a bit of a trick,
though.”

“How so?”

Sorensen interrupted by dropping his
silverware. “Is your energy output related to caloric intake? Does
your body begin to cannibalize its own muscle and bone mass after a
certain point?”

“Yes and yes.”

The doctor began to tap the fingers of his
left hand against his thumb. “Is it dangerous,” he said, “for you
to come in contact with other objects?”

Barry folded a piece of french toast in
quarters, ate it in two bites, and washed it down with a mouthful
of coffee. “How do you mean?”

“I would assume proximity to you would excite
molecules to some degree. Some things may incinerate or covalent
bonds could break down. Perhaps even...” He stopped tapping his
fingers and mimed an explosion with his hands.

“I’ve had things go bang, yeah,” said Barry.
“I feel really queasy if I come in contact with too much solid
matter. I think it may be some kind of psychosomatic warning or
something.” He shoved another piece of bacon in his mouth and
paused to yawn. “Sorry. Minor food coma setting in. It’s been a
while since I got to gorge myself like this.”

Shelly sipped his coffee. “Are you short on
supplies out in Los Angeles?”

“Not short, but we definitely don’t have tons
of excess. Ammunition’s running low, so our scavengers are using
knives and machetes a lot more these days. We’ve managed to set up
a decent-sized garden in the Mount, and we’re breeding chickens in
one of the other lots, so there’s meat and eggs.”

The colonel dabbed his mouth with a napkin.
“Where did you find chickens in the middle of Los Angeles?”

“There were a bunch of families from Mexico
and South America who kept them in their back yards. Lots in
Chinatown and Little Tokyo, too. Some of them found shelter with a
group calling themselves the Seventeens.”

“The Seventeens?”

“They were a street gang that survived. They
saw the Zombocalypse as a chance to go all
Road Warrior
and
start their own little kingdom. When a bunch of them came to live
with us, they brought about fifty chickens with them.”

“If I may,” said the doctor. His voice
trailed off as he twisted his napkin once or twice. He set it back
down next to his plate and smoothed out each wrinkle with his
finger. “Ummmm, how did you acquire your abilities?”

Barry took another sip of coffee and cleared
his throat. “There was an accident involving a particle
accelerator, a liquid lunch, and a pair of rubber bands.”

Shelly smiled. The doctor looked up. For the
first time in the course of the meal it seemed like he’d noticed
Barry sitting there. “What did you say?” His eyes were wide.

“It was a joke. Didn’t you ever read
Life,
the Universe, and Everything
?”

“Was that Carl Sagan?”

“Douglas Adams,” he said, yawning again. “Is
it really warm in here?”

The doctor and the colonel exchanged a look.
“It’s always a little warm during the day,” said Shelly. “The curse
of being in the desert. You get used to it after a while.”

Barry glanced up at the air vent. Little
strips of colored paper fluttered in the breeze pumping out of it.
He took in a deep breath and stopped himself before he yawned a
third time.

Shelly and Sorensen looked at him. Sorensen’s
eyes flitted to the coffee mug.

“You fuckers,” Barry said.

He focused inside himself, reached for the
trigger in his cells that would turn him back into Zzzap, and the
yawn pushed its way out. He tried to shove the wheelchair away from
the table but his hands slipped and his head dropped. He heaved his
chin back up, clenched his eyes shut, and tried to force the
change. The trigger stayed just out of reach, and he realized he
couldn’t pry his eyes back open.

He heard a clatter and felt something warm on
his forehead. His last clear thought was that he’d collapsed in his
scrambled eggs and it was a waste of perfectly good bacon.

There were voices he couldn’t understand, a
sense of movement, and his final shreds of consciousness faded to
black.

NOW

Smith helped Danielle out of the Black Hawk and
guided her out from under the slowing rotors. Freedom held out a
hand for Stealth, but she ignored him and walked after Smith. The
wash from the helicopter blades whipped her cloak around her like a
bonfire of black flames.

Project Krypton was a collection of brick
buildings painted milky white in the middle of miles of sand and
rocky hills. At first glance the base didn’t look that different
from the dozen or so colleges or corporate campuses Danielle had
spent time on, just with more lava rocks than grass. It wasn’t
until she registered that everyone’s clothing was tan that it
started to seem “military” to her.

A sergeant waved Smith over and he left
Danielle standing on her own. The redhead looked at the open yard,
the sprawling space between structures, and on the other side of
the buildings, just a few hundred feet to the west, the three
chainlink walls with gaunt figures pushing against the outside
fence. Even with the huge open space, the sound of clicking teeth
danced on the edge of her hearing.

Her arms pulled in tight around her. She
turned to check on the armor, wondering how soon before she could
get it back on, and saw Stealth a few feet away.

“It’s weird,” Danielle said, “being outside
without the suit on. Outside somewhere else, y’know?”

The cloaked woman looked across the tarmac at
Smith, then at one of the nearby buildings. “Perhaps we can arrange
for you to wait indoors while they finish unloading.”

She shook her head. “I’ll wait until they
finish.”

“I shall remain with you, in that case.”

“I’m okay,” said the redhead.

“You spend every waking moment in the
Cerberus armor,” said Stealth, “and you sleep in a corner under
your kitchen table. I am certain these exposed conditions are
causing you no small amount of stress.”

“I said I’m okay,” Danielle repeated. “Stop
trying to be nice. It’s creepy.”

A lieutenant with a white armband approached,
flanked by two other soldiers. “Ma’am,” he said to Stealth, “I’m
going to have to ask you to please surrender your sidearms while
you’re on base.”

She turned her head to him. “I will not.”

The MP’s hand settled on his own weapon, and
his partners raised their rifles a few inches. Danielle saw
Stealth’s pose shift. “This isn’t a request, ma’am,” said the
officer. “Hand over both of your sidearms.”

“John,” called Danielle. “We’ve got a
problem.”

Smith jogged back over. “What’s going
on?”

“This woman refuses to surrender her weapons,
sir.”

Smith looked at Stealth’s elaborate double
holsters and back to the MP. “She’s a guest of the colonel,
Lieutenant... Furber,” he said with a clumsy glance at the
officer’s name. “I don’t think this is necessary.”

The soldier’s hand was still at his
pistol.

Smith turned to Stealth. “Look, you know how
the military works. This guy’s willing to let you pummel him just
so he doesn’t have to break procedure and disobey an order he got
six months ago. Just let it slide for now and I’m sure we’ll get it
sorted out in less than an hour.”

The cloaked woman stayed focused on the MP.
“I will not.”

“Can you just do it for now? I swear, Colonel
Shelly will get this all resolved in no time at all.”

The blank face of her mask turned to Smith,
then back to Furber.

When her hands moved, it was too fast to see.
The pistols were drawn and held out to the soldier, butt first,
before any of them could register it. One of the other MPs jerked
his rifle up out of instinct, a few moments too late.

“Jesus,” muttered Danielle.

Furber took a slow breath and retrieved both
of the weapons. “Glock 18C,” he said. “Nice. I didn’t think you
could get these in America.”

“I did not,” said Stealth.

“Ammunition?”

She pulled two extended magazines from
alongside each of the thigh-mounted holsters and four more stored
in a pair of rigid pouches on either side of her waist. Furber
looked up and down her skintight uniform. “Do you have anything
else you’d like to declare before—”

“If you attempt to search my person, I will
break both of your thumbs.”

Smith stepped between them. “I think we’re
good, don’t you?” He gave the MP a smile. “I’m sure the colonel
will agree you’ve done your duty. Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir,” said Furber. He and his squad
made a quick retreat.

“So, the colonel’s running a couple minutes
behind,” said Smith. “He should be here by the time we’ve got
everything unloaded, and then we can see about getting you those
back.” He squeezed Danielle’s shoulder and headed back over to the
helicopter.

Stealth examined the triple line of chainlink
fence a hundred yards away. Danielle watched the cloaked woman turn
her head to follow the barricade. “Something bugging you? Besides
being unarmed?”

“I am never unarmed, Danielle,” said Stealth.
“You should know that. I count twenty-eight sentries along this
section of the perimeter alone. There are another four in the
towers and ten patrolling between the fences.”

Danielle shrugged and watched the soldiers
give one of the Cerberus crates a nudge to make sure it was secure
on their cart. “Not many more than we’ve got on the wall most of
the time.”

The cloaked woman turned to examine the fence
line to the east, almost half a mile away. “It would appear these
numbers are consistent along their entire perimeter.”

“What’s your point?”

“When Zzzap did his reconnaissance, he
indicated the base had limited personnel. His exact words were ‘a
skeleton crew.’”

Danielle looked at the distant fence and
tried not to think about all the open space. “Maybe they put
everyone on just to impress us.”

“If they had the manpower to put such numbers
on their perimeter, why would they choose not to do so on a regular
basis?”

The redhead shrugged. “I’m sure they’ve got
their reasons,” she said. “Besides, there’s only, what, thirty or
forty exes out there. Hardly a threat against four dozen well-armed
soldiers.”

“Yes,” said Stealth, “I had noticed the low
numbers.”

“Once the full scope of the epidemic was
clear, the Army took much more aggressive measures toward
controlling it,” said Freedom. He’d moved up behind them. A few
yards back, a pair of soldiers pushed the heavy cart laden with the
Cerberus crates. Danielle walked over to inspect their loading job.
“There were attempts to contain them, at first, but it came down to
killing them. We used a backhoe to dig a few mass graves out there
by the hills, and burned most of the ones we’d already
contained.”

“Of course,” said Stealth with a faint nod of
her head.

“It took a little over a year, but we cleared
out a good chunk of the surrounding region. We’ve even made some
headway into Yuma.” He looked down at her. “To be honest, ma’am,
I’m surprised you haven’t accomplished more at your base.”

Danielle looked up from the crates. “What’s
that supposed to mean?”

“No offense meant, ma’am,” he said. “I just
thought, well, with your combined abilities I’d think Los Angeles
would be a lot further on by now. It looked like there were a
thousand exes just gathered around your base.”

“We estimate fifteen hundred on an average
day.”

“Again,” said Freedom, “no offense meant,
ma’am, but why haven’t you done anything about them?”

The cloaked woman stared at him. Danielle
recognized the look and could guess what was coming next.

“We are at a sub-base on the Yuma Proving
Grounds, correct? The city of Yuma is fifty nine miles south-south
west of our current position.”

Freedom paused just for a moment. The corners
of his mouth twitched with grudging respect. “That’s correct,
ma’am.”

“So the area you ‘cleared out’ with your
superior numbers and weaponry consists of the mostly-empty proving
ground and the outskirts of a small city, population ninety
thousand, less than fifty thousand of which would have transitioned
according to all known statistics regarding the ex-virus.”

The smile flattened out. “Correct again.
Ma’am.”

“There are over five million ex-humans within
the city limits of Los Angeles,” said Stealth “This is one hundred
times the numbers you have dealt with, and does not include the
greater Los Angeles county area. If we had killed one hundred exes
a day, every day, for the past nineteen months, we would have only
eliminated one percent of the undead population of the city.” She
paused to let the numbers sink in. “We have better uses for our
time and resources.”

“I apologize, ma’am.”

“Why did you say most of them?”

Freedom blinked. “Ma’am?”

“When you were explaining the Army’s
aggressive stance, you said you burned most of the ones you had
contained. What did you do with the ones you did not burn?”

He set his mouth in a line and stared at her
blank mask. When she didn’t budge, the huge officer leaned back on
his heels. “The project director, Doctor Sorensen, asked us to get
him some live specimens, so to speak.”