Plague Planet (The Wandering Engineer) (42 page)

“Yes, soon,” Coltrain pointed to all the helpers. “The rest of you
non-deputized folks are dismissed. Boss won't let me pay you so I can't keep
you. Go home.”

“What about...” one guy started to ask. Nohar shook his head.

“People are already hoarding and looting Coltrain. Shouldn't
someone do something about that?” Nohar asked.

“I've got Rogers on that,” Coltrain said waving a dismissive hand.
“He and Eanus are doing just fine. Now go on, get,” he said waving a dismissive
hand. “Go, shoo!” he said. “Go on before I cite you all for failure to
disperse!” he said. “Oh, oh! That's a good idea! Boss'd get all tickled over
the tickets, let me get my pad,” he turned to the car. The assembled people
didn't need any further invitation, they dispersed, muttering darkly about
ingratitude as they headed back to Hazard.

...*...*...*...*...

Back in town, Nohar's group headed their separate ways. Their eyes
dart around, paranoid over the darkened town. Hodges had scrimped on the
lights, something about the electric bill. For Nohar it was no big deal, but
the humans among the group weren't happy about the dark. They were even less
happy about being near a full size Neotiger. Nohar snorted as they turned a
corner and left him. He however heard voices, angry voices coming from another
direction. He oriented on it and noted it was Main street. He sighed. He'd
better take a look.

Rogers was on a darkened main street, trying to keep order. A
small riot was put down with a blast of his shot gun over their heads. “That's
rock salt.” he cocked the gun again. “Next one's lead. Any of you want some
keep doin what your doin. Otherwise go home, lock your doors and wait it out.”
He growled.

The crowd stared, not just at him but at something off to his
left. After a long moment they looked down and then the crowd dispersed,
muttering as they melted away.

Roger's turned to see Nohar behind him, backing him up. The Neo's
ears were flat on his head, bristling, teeth grimacing. He was a sight. He
seemed to slacken off and then relax under the deputies’ gaze though. He
nodded. “You too detective, bunk with Kong. We'll need you soon,” Roy said.
Nohar nodded and turned to leave.

“And Nohar,” Roy said. The Neotiger looked over his shoulder.
“Thanks for the backup,” he said quietly, tipping his constable helmet.

“Anytime Rogers,” Nohar growled, flicking his ears in brief humor
as he stalked off.

...*...*...*...*...

Since the shuttle was in another town and locked down, the admiral
was forced to go to Hank. When Hank arrived with the replicator under one arm
he was naturally upset, he thought that the admiral was an Indian giver. “No,
I'm not, look Hank we don't have a lot of time to discuss this,” Irons replied,
trying to remain patient. He needed the blue Neolion, needed him on his side.

Hank's ears were flat on his head. “I know, and I know I've said
the damn thing was more trouble than it was worth but I didn't mean it!
Honest!” Hank replied, eyes wide in distress.

“I know,” Irons replied, one hand up to stop Hank. “Just hear me
out. I'm going to
borrow
it. I need your help. The people of this planet
need your help. Can you do that Hank?” Irons asked, looking imploringly to the
Neolion.

Hank nodded.

“What do you need?” he finally asked gruffly as he set it down on
the bench. Irons had been set up in the maintenance shop of the hospital. While
waiting for Hank he'd gone around and either selected items to be cannibalized
or repaired them and handed them to bemused nurses and orderlies who didn't
know what to do with them.

“More materials, but I think we've got enough here,” Irons said
looking around. Proteus had made a start of getting the area set up for his
intended purpose. It wasn't big enough, but it would serve, at least for now.
“I'm going, I mean
we
are going to make another replicator. That way we
can run two.”

“We are?” Hank asked, eyes wide. Irons plugged it in and then
quietly explained to the blue Neolion what he wanted. Hank nodded. Hank was
fascinated to see Irons jacked into the device and the explanation of what
Irons planned. When he finally laid out a list of things for Hank to do the
Neolion nodded. “Seems simple enough, just feed the machine, take out the
finished tray of stuff and then do it all over again,” he said. “Any idiot can
do that.”

“Yeah well, we need someone who won't mess it up, won't fall
asleep or leave his post. I know you Hank, you'll do it. A lot of this stuff will
need assembling afterward, the replicators will be too small to do some larger
pieces of equipment, that too will fall on you. I'll leave a tablet with
directions on other things you can read,” Irons replied.

“Cool!” Hank said, eyes wide. He spread his hands. “What's first?”

“Some diagnostic machinery, but since we don't have enough we'll
do parts for a probe drone. I've got another going now but I'll show you,”
Irons replied. He explained the basic assembly of the drone and showed the blue
Neolion the directions on the tablet.

“Got it,” Hank said with a nod. “Don't you need to be somewhere
else?”

 Irons nodded in return and then patted him on the shoulder. Hank
watched the first tray of parts for the drone begin to form as Irons moved on
to the meeting that had just been called.

...*...*...*...*...

The communications device Irons had made in the conference room
was a sat com transceiver. It linked to the computer network he'd established
so they could communicate to the satellites in orbit and to Phoenix without
going through him anymore, thus freeing him up for other jobs.

It also served as a long range Wi-Fi node to allow Sprite to
communicate through the minicomputer network the admiral had set up in the
board room. Since the admiral was away working on logistics, Sprite was
monitoring and attempting to brief the doctors in the board room.

“Are we sure it was the pods as the vector?” Doctor Zane asked.
They still didn't have a lot to go on. “We're basing everything on
suppositions. A house of cards that could easily get knocked down.” He and
Sprite were tasked with trying to get more intel but had little to go on. The
distance was a factor, figuring out a way around that... he'd heard them
talking about suits but didn't want any part of that right now. Looking at this
thing from a distance was the safer bet... at least until they knew more or
exhausted all the options.

“This could be, I dunno, someone may have opened a canister or
something, scavengers are always digging stuff up. Or it could be, I don't know
something else. A new swamp fever. We get them in that area all the time.
Versions of Malaria and all sorts of things. Damn mosquitoes are as thick as
pea soup in the summer,” he growled. Some of the other doctors in the room
nodded.

Sprite linked with Phoenix, and then used the screen to show them
real time image of Rubicon. Together they spotted strange changes to the ground
around where the pods were , or at least once were. “What the hell?” Zane
asked. There was a perfect circle in the middle of the warehouse district. He
could see warehouses and buildings on the outer edge of that circle corroding
before the ship passed over the horizon and the image was lost. Sprite put the
last image back up and froze it.

“What are we looking at?” Helen asked, carrying a tray of
sandwiches in as she entered the room. She set them down and turned expectantly
to the AI. She was still getting used to the thing.

Sprite replied “Rubicon,” with a tart voice.

She blinked. “It's...  are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Ted pointed to the screen. “Shouldn't there be, well buildings, a
warehouse?”

Sprite overlaid a map and they discovered the missing buildings
had a common center, where the pods where, or at least had been. “Pandora's
box,” Sprite murmured.

“There's your smoking gun doctor. I need to speak with the
admiral. This is more than what we thought,” Sprite said tightly. With the
building missing that meant nanites as well as a series of biological
pathogens. “This just gets better and better,” she muttered.

...*...*...*...*...

A knock on her open office door made Helen grunt. “It's open,” she
said, not looking up.

“We're um, running out of materials for that admiral fellow,” a
rather haggard Nurse Marlone told Helen near midnight. “He's stripped us of
just about everything we can afford to lose. He's got us bringing him waste,
all the hospital waste,” she wrinkled her nose in disgust at that. “And he's
even got some patients ripping up the grass and trees for biomass he said.” She
wrinkled her nose at that. All sorts of doodads and gizmos were being made, she
didn't understand any of them. The stuff Irons had handed to the orderlies had
been tossed in a nearby supply closet. They didn't know what to do with the
things.

“At this rate the grounds are going to be a shambles come morning,”
she said sounding aggrieved. “Lobart isn't going to like that,” she warned,
mentioning the grounds keeper.

“I don't care,”  Helen replied, not looking up from the text she
was trying to concentrate on. She took her glasses off and rubbed at her eyes.

“You should rest.”

“I can't. I need more coffee. Find some coffee will you?”

“We're out. That Irons fellow sucked it all down,” the older woman
said.

“Then find some more!” Helen said in exasperation. “Get someone
to, I don't know, go to the store or something.”

“They are all closed. Everything is closed right now,” the nurse
said. “It's the middle of the night,” she replied.

Helen glanced at the darkened window and snorted. She hadn't even
noticed. “Make some calls, get some supplies rolling in. Wake people up if you
have to.”

“I'll...”

“I don't need excuses just do it,” Helen growled. “I don't care
about the budget, if they want money tell them to
bill
us. Tell them
we're trying to fight the damn virus. If they won't give it to you then find
someone else!”

“Irons suggested the dump! Can you believe that?” The nurse asked,
wrinkling her nose and crossing her arms. “Go to the dump of all things!”

“Then do that. It's free, so get what he needs.”

“But we don't have the trucks...”

Finally Helen lost her tired temper. She glared and slapped her
hand onto the desk. “Look I don't need this shit, just find whatever he needs
and do it fast! I don't need problems I need solutions!” She told nurse Marlone
and others. They hustled to obey.

“Problems, nothing but problems, problems they could solve if they
just did it!” she snarled throwing her hands up in the air. She hadn't expected
logistical problems.

...*...*...*...*...

People milled about outside the perimeter wall, some by torch
light, others with flashlights. The police attempted to disburse them but they
just came back. It made getting supplies in and out of the compound difficult,
slowing the deliveries and returning trucks as people had to be asked to move
out of the way.

The crowd eventually noted some of the medics and drivers were
wearing surgical masks. Demand for them spiked as word got around. To placate
the crowd the medics distributed some of their excess masks. There wasn't
enough to go around however so people began making their own. A few fabric companies
woke up to the possibility of profit and got involved and sold them at a
premium. Several people set up sowing machines on the curb and volunteers
peddled the machine's to keep them going into the night.

Sprite had to laugh at the designer labels and color patterns.
Even in a crisis organics had to do stupid things like that.

...*...*...*...*...

“From what we've been able to discover there are multiple elements
to this act of bio-terrorism,” Sprite reported near dawn. An image was up on
the screen. “This is both a class six and class seven hazard, definitely a
planetary class quarantine.”

“Which we already knew about,” Helen Richards replied patiently.
She grabbed the urn of coffee in the center of the table and poured herself a
cup. It was only luke warm, but it was enough. She cradled her mug with both
hands. “Weaponized airborne pathogens, clustered. Some moving by the wind,
others protean.”

“Yes, well, we know more now Director,” Sprite responded. “A
doctor Howard, I'm assuming a retired or off duty doctor who sidelined as a
farmer near Rubicon called Hazard a few hours ago. There is a mini-comp plugged
into the Hazard City grid, Phoenix recorded the call and I've listened to it.”

“Can we listen to it?” Doctor Zane asked.

Sprite's avatar turned to him. “Do you want to listen to your
friend die a horrible and agonizing death?” she asked.

He gulped. After a moment he shook his head.

“We may have to, it's our only other lead right now,” Helen
sighed.

“Let's leave that for a little while doctor. I can do a rough
diagnosis based on his own described symptoms,” Sprite replied. “Which are the
following,” she paused.