That’s where she found us. The U.S.S. Enterprise. The Big “E.” A nuclear-powered, soon-to-be-decommissioned, older-than-dirt savior of the few shreds of humanity left clinging to life on the Eastern Seaboard. She was searching for survivors and doing some pyrotechnic clean up work in Manhattan when we got there. She was our savior, our refuge, and our new home.
I shook my head for what must have been the fiftieth time. At the junction of two hallways, Kate turned back to me, as if she were waiting for a response.
“What happened to the chopper after they left us at the field? The explosion, the wires … how did they survive? I mean … well, you know. We thought they were both dead.”
I was struggling to put the pieces together. I stopped, leaning against a cluster of pipes for support.
She stopped and nodded to a female crew member as she walked past. The crew member glanced at me and moved on, suddenly double taking and turning around. She paused, as if thinking of approaching me, a smile on her face.
I nodded disinterestedly and turned decisively away in a practiced and patented move. She took the hint and moved on. It was still so surreal to be out amongst the people again, having to deal with the famous person shit.
Amazing how the aloofness came so naturally, even now. Just like riding an asshole bike; once you learn how, you never forget.
Kate continued, speaking quietly enough that our escort couldn’t hear.
“The blades hit the wire hard enough to throw the rotation off and blow a fuse. Hartliss had to set down soon after, but the explosion we saw was apparently a misfired rocket. He said the impact from the wires forced his hand into the trigger and the weapons were still hot. It was when they set down that Fred turned on him. He realized that Hartliss was the only way to get back to you, and made his decision. Put a gun to his head and made him make the repairs and return up the mountain. They got fuel at a podunk local airfield, put back into the air at daybreak and followed us to the facility. Fred put a bullet into Hartliss’ stomach after they landed, trusting in his own piloting skills to get him off the roof.”
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, motioning 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.”