Herculanium (36 page)

Preston had his attention split between his hostage and the cab that had just parked in front of them. He wasn’t sure if it was another hostile car or just a helpful bystander. Heralded by skidding tires on wet gravel, high-beams suddenly flooded his cab from behind. In the heartbeat that it took for the lights to distract Preston, Max broke his grip and was already out the door.

Preston immediately exited the cab through the front driver-side door and pursued Max, only to see him vanish behind the lead cab. He turned around and faced Agent Barrett’s headlights, unsure of what was to come next.

“You can keep your firearm, Corporal Rogers,” said Agent Barrett as he retrieved and cocked his gun. “Just back me when we corner and subdue your ward.”

“What exactly is going to happen to him after all this?” asked Jayna, retrieving her own gun and getting ready for action.

The special agent smiled from ear to ear as he grabbed the door handle. “The life expectancy of plague carrier is about as long as my cum squirt. His miserable life is forfeit.”

Jayna cocked her gun and paused. She knew she shared Preston’s fate, and this fool just signed his death warrant.

“I remind you that you are an officer for Combattra, and as a government operative, I am ordering you to obey my command and subdue Preston Jones, soldier.” Special Agent Barrett turned around and slowly opened the door, scouting his surroundings for a successful tactical offensive.

Jayna briefly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She lowered her gun and discharged it at Agent Barrett’s lower back, sending him quivering in place before folding limp to the floor. Without missing a beat, she turned and fired through the cab’s glass plating. The panel cracked instantly into a giant crystal spider web, with the bullet sending the driver’s head splattered in strands through the steering wheel and dashboard.

“Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy,” she repeated to herself. “Didn’t compensate for the recoil.”

Jayna crawled over Agent Barrett’s body feet first and kicked the passenger door wide open. She aimed even before she saw the rear cab’s windshield, firing instantly the half-second she had a clear visual. Three bullets cratered the windshield, while fourth and a fifth took out a front headlight and a tire.

Scanning the car with her gun, she approached it slowly, mentally trying to anticipate every dangerous contingency that could catch her by surprise. She had two bullets left in the gun chamber, and the few seconds it would take to reload might give her attackers the opening they needed to pay her back.

With rain streaming down her hair and face, Jayna stood frozen in place.

Preston was ecstatic at seeing his friend emerge from the car behind him. Although he wanted to scream her name out loud with joy, he knew better than to distract her in the middle of an armed confrontation. He took two steps in her direction when an unexpected voice cleared its throat behind him.

“I wouldn’t be turning my back if I were you, slick. You have plenty to worry about in front of you.”

Two hulking military guards stepped out of the lead cab and stood in front of a cowering Max. Preston momentarily froze in place, caught off-guard as he surveyed the two approaching bodybuilders from top to bottom. Even with the rain drenching their loose clothing, he could tell they were unnaturally chiseled and quite fit for combat.

“Gentlemen,” he said with a smile, quickly changing his demeanor from fear to exaggerated kindness, “let’s be civilized about this. Maybe we can work this out. I just want to know why this nice man tried to kidnap me. So…who here is from out of town?”

“We’ve been given direct orders from General Cube to kick your ass,” said the lead guard, his flattop slowly flattening from the downpour, “and we never disobey orders.”

The second guard pulled out two pairs of arm-length gloves from his pocket and handed one to his partner. “Here you go, Mac. Just so’s we don’t leave any marks.”

“Put that away, Murphy. I’m going to administer an old-fashioned ass-whuppin.’ I really doubt we’re gonna leave any kind of mark on that dark skin of his.”

The lead guard took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “I can use the practice; I haven’t beat up a black man in a long while.”

Preston smiled and nodded his head. “That’s smooth jazz to my ears, mother-fucker. Come and get some.”

The rear car lay slumped on one side, maimed with a flat tire. Despite its lone headlight slicing the darkness, it sat lifeless in place like a corner junkyard shell. Water began to puddle and seep inside the bullet holes that Jayna had inflicted on its windshield, seemingly proving that whoever was inside was dead. Her training told her otherwise, however, as playing possum was the oldest trick in the book. Maintaining a defensive distance, she circled slowly around to the driver side door, needing to see a body to confirm her success. There was no telling how many agents could’ve still be hiding inside the car.

She saw Preston from her peripheral vision, and could hear him speaking to men from the lead cab. He was a capable athlete, she justified to herself, and was more than able to defend himself. She would join his side, as soon as she dealt with her more immediate assailants.

The lone headlight cut across her body like a scanning laser as the car suddenly revved to life and swerved to run her over. Jayna instinctively shuffled back behind her own cab’s door and kneeled to a defensive posture. The car skidded itself into a U-turn and hobbled forward to drive back to the direction of the cemetery. As soon as the cab had completely turned around, Jayna ran forward and fired a single shot into the rear windshield, aligning the bullet’s entry point with the head of the driver. The car’s loud acceleration suddenly lowered to a sinking whine, with the car returning back to the side of the road and slamming into a tree.

Jayna quickly replaced her gun’s magazine and returned to inspect the car. Not wanting to take any chances with other survivors, she peppered the frame with strategically placed kill-shots before finally striking the fuel tank. The cab erupted into a swirling fireball that sizzled against the rain.

She sighed and leaned back against her cab, exhausted.

“Why are you running, boy?” said the lead guard with a smile, his hands raised in an awkward fighting position. “You’re just stalling the pain.”

Preston cautiously circled the two men, continuously aligning them up in a straight line. By doing this, he would only have to fight one man at a time.

“Stand still and I’ll give you the first hit.” Mac lowered his hand and stuck out his chin with exaggeration. He motioned for Preston to come forward. “Come on; give me your best shot.”

He barely finished his sentence when Preston threw a bone-crunching knuckle right cross against the guard’s nose. Water from the impact exploded in all directions. To his surprise, the guard squinted his eyes, threw up his hands and laughed.

“Is that the best you got, boy? Give me another one. Make it count this time.”

His southern drawl started to wear on Preston’s nerves. Cocking his right hand up, he feinted another right cross, which the guard anticipated and leaned into. But instead of following through, Preston stopped the punch short and instead swung a roundhouse kick into the guard’s groin. Before the guard could fully drop to the ground, Preston punted another groin kick for good measure, making sure he wasn’t going to get back up.

“I think that’s going to leave more than just a mark on your skin,” said Preston, glaring at his opponent crumpled in a tight fetal position.

The second guard stepped forward, staring at his friend with concern. He wasn’t amused.

“That street-fighting shit ain’t going to work on me,” he said, marching towards Preston in strides. He kept his hands down as he came forward, seemingly baiting Preston to throw the first punch. Preston immediately circled laterally, bouncing on the balls of his feet to stay mobile. As the guard abruptly jerked himself closer, Preston pumped several feint jabs at his face before step-punching in with right cross/left body hook combination.

The guard absorbed the impact and maintained the pursuit, not bothering to even raise his hands to block. As Preston maintained his distance to just outside striking range, he felt a sharp stinging over his hand. In the dim light, he could see he had just torn the skin off his first and second knuckles.

While keeping his eyes focused squarely on Preston’s, the guard threw a low-line leg smash roundhouse kick to Preston’s lead leg, buckling his thigh and causing him to fall backwards off-balance. In that split-second, the guard rushed forward and tangled Preston in a clinch. Preston immediately felt his right elbow tighten to the point of breaking, as the guard caught him in a vicious armlock. Punching the guard’s face to free his arm, Preston pushed him back and attempted to throw an off-balanced front kick. The guard caught the kick, grabbed both of his legs, and lifted Preston’s entire body over his shoulder. Flipping him high upside-down in mid-air, the guard slammed Preston hard on the mud.

Preston lay dazed on the ground, the acute pain of having the wind knocked out of his system spiking his chest. The guard dove between his legs and began raining blows on his face, prompting Preston to instinctively raise his hands up and block. Bracing his heels against the guard’s hips, Preston pushed him back off his body with a grunt. Kicking his legs backwards over his head, Preston then rolled over up to his feet again and stood back.

Before the guard could stand fully erect, Preston rushed him and attempted his own takedown. A seasoned wrestler, the guard immediately ducked under and swung his lead arm up between Preston’s legs, lifting him high above the ground again in a fireman’s carry. Just as he was about to slam Preston down to the ground again, Preston scissored his legs around the guard’s body. The momentum of the throw and the added body weight caused them both to fall awkwardly to the ground.

Preston was the first to rise this time, immediately mounting the guard and swinging at his face. When the guard seemed to be defending against the blows well, Preston grabbed the back of his opponent’s head and began head-butting him with wild abandon. With each strike, he could feel the guard’s strength and motivation leave his limbs and body.

Preston ceased his attack when the guard appeared helpless and unable to continue. Blood from the impact of the head-butts dripped like light syrup from his forehead to the guard’s face, flavoring the rain with dark copper. When the guard slowly raised his hand to wipe the rain away from his face, he tasted the blood and quickly looked at his hand.

He screamed in terror, his face contorted in a death-bed grimace of fright and insanity. He pushed Preston off his body and disappeared in the darkness, leaving a prostrate Preston shaking his head.

Max the cabbie crouched in front of the lead cab, menacingly swinging a military knife before him. Preston sat down and folded his legs, letting the rain wash the blood from his face. His body was aching in places not even his athletic career had touched, and was he too exhausted to continue fighting.

“I’m right here, Max,” he said with a bluff challenge, hoping he would voluntarily give up. “If you still want me, come and get me.”

Max hesitated, but then charged forward with a scream. He swung the blade high over his head in an icepick grip, lunging forward and down with his entire body weight behind the motion.

In mid-stride, his head exploded sideways, leaving a nearly decapitated corpse tripping and falling beside a cringing Preston. He turned to the direction of the gunshot, and saw a smiling, if exhausted, Jayna.

“What took you so bloody long to finish these guys?” she asked with a panting giggle. “Definitely not Combattra material.” She kneeled down on the mud beside him, hunching her head down in exhaustion. She almost lowered her gun in the water before catching herself in time.

“I’m not the one with the big gun,” he said. “What took
you
so long to get me? You could’ve taken them out in a second.”

“I wanted to see what you were made of, to see how old-timers fight.”

“So how did I do, teacher? Did I pass?” He stared at his knuckles and winced.

“Don’t get me started. It’s bad enough you’re my partner.” She couldn’t hold her smile back any longer.

Preston immediately pushed her over sideways, sending her sprawled in the mud. “I think I did pretty damn well, considering I was fighting two guys.”

Jayna propped herself up and gently lifted Preston’s chin. “Are you bleeding?” she asked, quickly changing her demeanor to one of concern. “Is this your blood?”

“Nope,” he said with proud accomplishment. “It’s that guy’s who just ran out of here. I think it’s from the head-butts. He just saw the blood and freaked out. I don’t know why.”

“Chum, we’re both in deeper shit than you realize. We have to get out of here. Now.” She stood up and hoisted Preston up by the arm. “They’ve already communicated with the quarantine van up ahead, I’m sure. We can’t stay and hide here. We have to go the city.”

“What’s going on, Jayna? Why did they try to kidnap me? And you?” He pointed to the bodies and the smoldering car behind them.

“I’ll explain on the way. We can’t stay here a moment longer.”

They got into the lead cab and drove off into the darkness, hoping the rain would wash away the sins they had just left behind.

The quarantine van up the road was ominously dark and abandoned as they passed it, prompting Jayna to wish it wasn’t a metaphor for things to come.

Whoever was there escaped ahead of them, and reinforcements were surely on their way.

Preston stared up at the basketball hoop and paused his dribbling. It seemed unusually higher than normal, more distant than times past. He could remember coming to the gym every morning and warming up to this very same hoop before running to class. There was just something magnetic about handling the ball, hearing the swish of the net, and feeling the hollow ping of the ball hitting the hardwood floor. Of all the doors and windows inside the vast gymnasium, this lone hoop contained the largest opening.

It was also the opening that mattered most, because inside it was an opportunity to see the world.

He backed away from the hoop and began taking jump-shots, varying the distance and stroke with each release. Preston often considered himself untouchable when playing in his flow, relying on his staggered dribbling as much as his shooting. He was an artist whose canvas was the floor, and his brush was the basketball. He left the rest to chance, God, and fate.

It wasn’t unusual for outsiders to come in and watch their favorite players. Other members of Preston’s team often came in early to practice, gathering their own respective cheering sections to form an impromptu audience. Although Preston was the newest member on the squad, the appeal of his name garnered him the largest fan base. Some of the fans were regulars, while others were just passersby who were curious after seeing him on television.

There was no shortage of admirers this morning.

What had started out as a solo practice session had blossomed into a three-on-three game with other players, much to the delight of the fans. Preston had the game-winning possession, too, when the alarm claxons suddenly went off, sending everyone out of the building in an unexpected fire-drill. Like all of his practices, he was the last one out of the building.

This time, however, he had company.

“Nice game, Preston,” said a teenage fan, turning around before exiting out the door with the crowd. “I like that one-spin dribble move you do; very old-school.”

“Thank you, sir. I do all the grown-up moves so I can get better faster.”

“You’re definitely on your way. I think I’m becoming your biggest fan. My name is Edward.”

Preston smiled and shook his hand, proudly gripping his ball tighter to his body.

“Can I have your autograph?” asked another teenager, approaching the two seemingly out of nowhere. “It’s for my collection of future stars. I have a feeling yours is going to be the most valuable, man.”

Preston was never too tired for a compliment, or to sign an autograph for a fan. He always kept a pen handy, just in case the requestor misplaced his.

“Where do you want me to sign, sir?”

“Sign the back of my jacket,” said the second teen, turning around and leaning over backwards.

Young Preston barely finished writing the third letter of his name when he felt a sharp pinch on his left thigh. He suddenly felt faint, collapsing in the arms of the waiting Edward. With the other students lining up in their designated areas across the compound, the two men quietly carried Preston back inside the gym.

“Agent Hendricks reporting,” said the second teen into his remote phone. “Agent Biggs and I are inside the gym. The subject has been contained. I repeat, the subject has been contained.”

“Edward” carefully capped his syringe and dropped it inside a specimen disposal bag.

“Splendid,” exclaimed a disembodied voice from the other end. “Please transport the subject to Quarantine Station 2. Both of you will then proceed to the decontamination center inside Babel Hospital.”

“Understood. Over and out.”

Both men smiled, slapping each other’s hands in celebration. They carefully peeled the skin-tight gloves from the top of their forearms and added them to the disposal bag, wiping off the sweat before replacing them with a fresh pair. Exiting through one of the gym’s many side entrances, they loaded the child’s body into a waiting car and disappeared in traffic.

The remaining children waited outside in the cool morning heat, enjoying their brief respite before going to class.

* * *

Jayna all but disappeared beneath the cab’s open hood, almost as if she was being swallowed alive by its machinery. She had taken some makeshift tools she found in the rear trunk and mumbled herself off to some mission in its front. This was an amazing sight for Preston, seeing his best friend go from vulnerable confidante, to protective soldier, to a car mechanic. If this was the standard issue soldier of the future, then the military had sure come a long way.

Preston squatted next to the right passenger doors and scrubbed. He used a wet cloth cupped around a fistful of fine gravel to scrape the cab’s registration numbers off its body frame. It was much harder than it looked, considering the paint pigment was embedded and actually part of the metal skin itself. He had finished the other doors and trunk as best as he could, with only one panel remaining.

“Well that was a monster, wasn’t it?” Jayna finally emerged from the hood and walked around to Preston’s side of the cab. With her hair unkempt and her sleeves rolled up to reveal oil-soaked forearms, it appeared she won a pyrrhic victory against her mechanical adversary. “Now they can’t track us.”

“What were you doing inside there anyway?” asked Preston, grimacing while finishing the last panel.

“I disabled the car’s global positioning system. All public and private transports have a small chip that can be tracked by drone or balloon satellite. This should give us more time to think this through. How are you fairing with your art job?”

“It looks like shit; scrub lines are going against the grain, the paint layers don’t match. To be honest, it looks like fine porcelain polished with kitty litter.”

“Looks fine to me, champ. In this weather, who can tell? Considering what we’ve been through and what we’re up against, we’re not doing too badly.” But she then added with reflection, “It could better, though.”

“So what’s the plan now? Do we go back or move forward?” Preston finally threw his rag down in frustration and stood up.

“We have to go back to the city. If we stay out here, we’re an open target. If we get lucky and sneak back into town, we have a better chance of hiding in-between everybody.”

“You don’t think we have a better chance of hiding in a remote area? They’ll be expecting us to go back to the city.”

“What exactly is out here for us to hide under, Preston? Trees? Tombstones? You want to hide inside the Necropolis with the other dead people? Two ants have a better chance of hiding in a mound than in an open field.”

He gently parted her bangs apart, brushing them lightly with his fingers. “Let’s just get out of here,” he said with a reassuring smile. “You’re right, of course. We’d better go.”

Sunlight had broken through the clouds when they drove off, layering the horizon with billowing curtains of light. While still overcast, the sky was fractured in sections of gray and gold, raining on one end while sunny on the other. It was a pleasant break in their otherwise eventful afternoon, a peaceful glance wishfully thought to have been made for their benefit.

“I didn’t think it was going to stop raining today,” said Preston, looking outside his window. “I hope it’s a sign.”

“You’re much too optimistic, my dear,” said Jayna, continuously checking her rear and side-view mirrors. “Remember that I work for the people that are after us. This is anything but random, and they won’t stop until they get you.”

“Why did you kill those people, Jayna? You shot those people in cold blood.”

“Did you see what you did to those two people? The first guy is a high tenor now, unable to bear children. You kicked him twice in his scrotal sac. You shattered the second guy’s nose bridge.”

“They’re still alive, aren’t they? Whatever I broke can be fixed. They can still live productive lives. But the moment you pulled the trigger, their lives were done. They can’t come back anymore.”

Jayna smiled at the irony of their conversation.

“Maybe we should turn ourselves in,” continued Preston. “Maybe we can get to the bottom of all this and bargain; you know, negotiate our way out.”

“Preston Jones is bearing down on me for killing a handful of people,” she recited out loud. “The same Preston Jones the government is now blaming for endangering the entire planet, from a disease that he’s carrying that no one has had in two hundred years.”

Preston stared at her in shocked silence.

“And you’re the one talking to me about the taking of lives...”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I’m not carrying a disease. I’m clean.”

“You really haven’t a clue, do you? You didn’t wonder why those two men you were fighting were wearing gloves? Why the second man screamed and ran when he thought he saw your blood mix with his? Or why, out of the blue, government agents would try to kidnap us both to have us quarantined?”

“I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. You’re not kidnapping me too, are you? I just can’t deal with that right now.”

“No, you blooming idiot. They think you’re carrying the next plague in your bloodstream. Tell me, have you ever had chicken pox?”

“Well of course, I have. Everybody has.”

The cab came to a screeching halt, its tires arcing the car sideways in a burning semi-circle.

“You admit it? So you’ve actually had it before?”

“All people from my century have. Everyone gets it when they’re young.”

“It’s coursing through your system now?”

“A part of it is, yes. After you get it, the virus remains in your bloodstream to build your immune system against another outbreak. After you get it once, you’re pretty much immune to it already. That is, unless you get shingles. That’s a milder form where the virus stays in your spine…”

“Is it contagious? Are
you
contagious?”

“Of course I’m not contagious. After you contract it and it goes away, you just can’t give it to someone simply by touching them. It’s inert in my blood, but it’s not transferable. Even if I bled on someone directly, they wouldn’t get it.”

Jayna gave the loudest sigh of relief that Preston had ever heard. She bowed her head and relaxed her grip on the steering wheel, laughing softly to herself. “The agents in the cab told me everything. They discovered you have the chicken pox virus in your bloodstream, and they think you passed it on to me.”

“So what if I do? What’s the big deal?”

“Mate, chicken pox doesn’t exist in this century. It hasn’t for nearly two hundred years. We don’t have an antidote for it. If even one person gets it and begins a pandemic outbreak, it could kill millions.”

“But it’s not contagious. People get it when they’re young. They’re covered in puss-balls for a week, but that’s it.”

“What happens when adults get it?”

Preston paused and looked at her with concern; it
was
potentially fatal if contracted beyond childhood. From his reaction alone, Jayna knew it was dangerous.

“At any rate, this is much more than just containing the plague. It’s about payback. You embarrassed the entire Combattra organization with that speech of yours, and I’m sure that Judge Thorne and General Cube have it out for you. They needed a reason—an excuse—to remove you, and this disease just turned you into Public Enemy Number One. With that said, the righteous military will now come charging to the rescue and save humanity from this traitorous renegade.”

“If they get a hold of us, what are they going to do? What’s going to happen?”

“I’m sure they’re going to make it as public a lynching as possible. Restoring pride and amending embarrassment for men of power usually extols a high price. Those people I killed in the cemetery? I showed them the very same mercy as they would’ve shown us, minus the media coverage. You still want to judge me harshly? Go ahead. Just keep in mind we’re still government property, and will be disposed as such.”

“We don’t have a hell of a lot of options, do we?”

“We have two: surrender and be executed, or fight and be executed.”

“Are you sure it’s that final?”

She smiled. “It’s only a matter of time.”